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MARTHA KE.AN 




Class 



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Book 3^V|6r ^ 

Copyright}!^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



A 
TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 




The street at St. Biiac. 



A 
TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

BEING THE SIMPLE CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER 
SOJOURN IN BRITTANY * TOLD IN LETTERS HOME 

# # BY MARTHA KEAN # m 



ILLUSTRATED FROM 
PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN 
BY THE AUTHOR 




PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. 
* * NEW YORK i^ MCMIV * * 



T)C(d\\ 



TWO OoDles Recfttved 

SEP 17 1904 
Oooyrlffht Entrv 

CLASS a XX6. No. 

,_ ^CePY B 



Copyright, 1904, by 
The Century Co. 



Published October, ige4. 



THE DEVINNE PHESS, 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The street at St. Briac Frontispiece 

Map of St. Malo and vicinity 19 

The rolling bridge . . . 31 

St. Malo — general view 31 

The quay below the Tour de Solidor .... 36 

Dinard — Le Prieure 36 

Our first view of La Petite Mouette, which is 

marked with a + 42 

Francine 47 

La Petite Mouette, showing the lodge and the 

chateau Les Essartes across the wheat-field . . 51 

La Petite Mouette from Les Essartes .... 51 

Serapolette in the paddock 56 

Inside the court by the rabbit-hutches .... 56 

William drives Serapolette to the village . . . 61 

Mr. Wu on Serapolette 61 

On the ramparts at St. Malo 68 

Resting on the ramparts at St. Malo .... 68 

Between hedges of salt-bush 81 

Our tiny brick box of a bath-house . . . . 81 

Ready to dig for lan^on 88 

John and a lobster-trap 88 

V 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 



The great entrance gate to the grounds ... 94 

A view from the tower window (La Petite 

Mouette) 94 

The girls wear Russian blouse suits like boys . . 99 

Maximilien and Eugenie, with some of their cousins 99 

A view of La Petite Mouette showing the grounds 

Mme. Illy 

The little terraced garden where Mrs. Head Gar- 
dener sewed and read 

La petite Mathilde 

Allant au de Nicey. The beach at low tide. La 
Petite Mouette 

On the rocks beneath the circular lookout at low tide 

Vinchelez is only one of many charming old lanes 

The famous cabbages, ten feet high .... 

Mont Orgueil Castle at Gorey, Jersey .... 

Where lilies grow — at La Petite Mouette and not 
at Guernsey 

Study of the Brittany coifFe 

They mark the prize pigs on their backs with blue 
chalk 

Five thousand of these little boats go fishing for 
oysters 

Cancale — retour de la peche 

In the sand-box boat at the chateau .... 

The sailor 

Dinan — Porte de Jerzual 

Dinan 

The bread-cart 

Le petit boucher 



05 
05 

1 1 
1 1 

19 

19 
28 

36 

42 

47 

47 

53 
53 

57 

">! 
64 

^1 

75 
75 



VI 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

They came singing down the road 186 

They came singing down the road . . . . . 186 

The procession at St. Briac . . . . . . . 191 

The procession at St. Briac . . . . . . . 191 

The goldfish pond 197 

The beach at Dinard 208 

Ange 213 

Marie Louise Jean, the gardener's wife . . . 213 

Mere Gobier Cutting the Wheat (after Millet) . 219 

The Village Windmill (after Corot) . . . . 219 

The ''smuggler's house" 226 

Madeleine in the little court at La Petite Mouette 226 

A picnic on the moors 233 

La Garde-Guerin 233 

Two old peasants are cutting the wheat . . . 240 

Mr. Wu **artisting" (the wheat-field) . . . ■ 240 

The pastry-boy 247 

The butcher-boy in his robes, taken in the small 

court at La Petite Mouette 247 

A Brittany sunrise 263 



Vll 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 



A TRANSPLANTED 
NURSERY 




CHAPTER I 

AM writing, my dear Cherrie 
Reed, to tell you of our decision 
in regard to a place to spend the 
coming summer, and I know you 
will be surprised, and no doubt displeased, 
with my choice. We are going to France, 
to Brittany — to St. Briac, wherever that 
may be, for I know little about it myself 
except that it is a tiny village on the sea, 
not at all fashionable, and that I can get 
a house with a garden there for a certain 

sum. 

Now, 'why are we going so far away when 
there are plenty of such places on our own 
coast ? Why does any one go to Europe ? 
I answer you Yankee fashion. For various 

3 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

and sundry reasons, but principally because 
one wants to go. I need not enter into de- 
tails about my reasons for leaving home, in 
the first place, for you know that I never in- 
tend to keep the children in the city during 
the summer's heat if I can possibly afford and 
arrange to take them away from it. There- 
fore, if I am to go at all, why not let it be to 
some place where life is strange and new, and 
where I can speak French and not just waste 
my days eating and sleeping and changing 
my clothes '? I have always wanted to go to 
France, the real France, not Paris, — and why 
should n't \? Just because I have three small 
children'? They are better travelers than 
many of their elders that I know, and it will 
be no more trouble to take them to Brittany 
than it would be to take them again to Cape 
Ann, where we went last year. And I am 
going to prove in plain round figures that it 
is no more expensive. 

I wonder if you realize how old my young 
saplings really are ? John is now six ; Joe will 
shortly arrive at his fifth birthday; and my 
youngest, Master William, is exactly three. 

4 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

I shall take Link, the boy's nurse, and shall 
keep house after we get there, for of course 
I do not want to board. The Swedish Lady, 

as the boys have called dear M C for 

some time, and her friend Imogene, are going 
to be with me for a fortnight anyway, and 
will go later to Naase, Sweden, to take the 
course in sloid there. Of course it is the 
greatest pleasure to me to think of having 
them with me, even for part of the time. It 
is to be their first experience of foreign travel, 
and everything will be novel and full of 
interest, and they both will appreciate it all to 
the utmost. 

Our passage is engaged, our steamer clothes 
made, and everything arranged, so I am actu- 
ally going to transplant my nursery to differ- 
ent soil for a real change, and my young 
saplings will have fresh air, fresh sights, and 
new customs to add vigor to their growth 
and pleasure in the growing, and I as head 
gardener will delight in my task of superin- 
tending, training, and watching their develop- 
ment in the changed environment I have 
selected for them. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

You are not to worry about us, for you 
remember the old Bedouin sheik — who told 
my fortune — said that I was born under such 
a lucky star that if I should be in an accident 
no one could be hurt. So, you see, that will 
bring us safely through shipwreck or other 
disaster. Moreover, my real motive is that 
if we go over, your brother will have to come 
and get us, as I intend to refuse to return un- 
less he does so ; consequently for once he 
will be far enough from business to be able 
to forget it for a few weeks. 

So explain all to mother and give her my 
love. The boys send theirs also. 

Shake your head if you like, but be sure 
to write often and bid us God-speed, a happy 
time, and a safe return. 

Saturday, June 20. 



We are on deck and the day is perfect. 
The band is playing and the fresh sea breezes 
have blown away all trace of our overland 
journey, our fears, our preparations, our part- 
ings, and our mal de mer. The sun is shining, 

6 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

and we are in love with living, with our sur- 
roundings, and with ourselves. 

I am afraid I am not one who really cares 
what other people say or think about me, 
for had I been we should never now be sit- 
ting here watching the blue waves bob up 
and down as we plow steadily over them 
on our way to France ; for had I listened to 
the forebodings and comments of the kind 
friends who tried to discourage my coming 
we should never have dared to start. "But 
what are you going to do with the children '? " 
they said when they heard of my plans. " It 
must be very hard to have to leave them. " 
" It would be, most surely," I answered 
sweetly, "but I shall take them with me." 
" T'ake them with you ? " " Those three ba- 
bies ? " " You cannot mean it, surely ? " 
" Such a short time I " " Oh, really'?" "Such 
a lot of trouble and so dangerous I " " We 
never heard of such a thing I " " You are 
sure to regret it I " Such were the comments 
that I was obliged to hear if not to heed. 

I object to some of Ruskin's guileless con- 
ceits, good man though he was and wise, but 

7 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

now I wish that I had thought to quote to my 
advisers that part where he talks about flowers 
and plants responding so quickly and surely 
to any care given them, and how much better 
it is for a woman to give her entire time, 
if need be, toward cherishing the little hu- 
man plants that show such good results in 
return for all wise training and cultivation, 
and repay it twofold in love and gratitude. 
But then, I never could quote anything off- 
hand correctly, and besides, some one of them 
would probably have remembered that trans- 
planting until recently has not been consid- 
ered good for young and tender plants. My 
theories are modern, but I have proved those 
I have adopted so far, and as my material is 
still sufficiently sturdy, I am extremely glad 
that I am well on the way to attempt the 
demonstration of this one. 

Moreover, I was too busy just before we 
came away to explain my motives, even if I 
wished to. Putting the wardrobes of five 
people into two trunks, in spite of the size of 
the big new wicker one, left me little time for 
anything save how to get many large objects 

8 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

into a few small spaces. When I think of 
those twenty-seven pairs of shoes, not count- 
ing the rubber boots^ I wonder how I ever 
did it; but I did not dare run the chance of 
having them put their little American toes, 
that have never been cramped, into anything 
built on French lasts, and of course I had to 
consider my own toes, and nurse's too. The 
big carryall, with the boots, rubber coats, 
caps, sweaters, and rugs, got down into the 
hold by mistake ; but I secured it just as we 
started, and had it put into the passageway 
outside our door. I am afraid we brought 
more washable things than we shall need, but 
every one told me, and all the guide-books 
say, that in Brittany they wash only once 
in six months, or at most once in three, and 
we simply must have clean linen. 

After we had our last glimpse of you on 
the pier Thursday, we went right down, and 
the boys were soon asleep. When they 
woke up we all had luncheon together at a 
separate table which we were able to secure 
in a corner with several portholes over it. 
Seated there, we were pale but confident. 

9 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

We ate our luncheon in good faith, and let no 
psychological misgivings hasten our down- 
fall; but alas I immediately afterward we were 
bowled over in the following order : Imogene, 
nurse, your wife, William, and the Swedish 
Lady last of all. John was deadly pale and 
most unhappy, but did not mention it. Joe 
apparently did not feel the motion at all. 
These two have not missed a meal, and are 
as hungry as little bears. Poor little William 
did not know what was the matter with him, 
and finally said, " I think Fodder ought to 
come," and again, most pitifully, " I guess 
we better go on quick to France." We all re- 
covered in rapid succession, and, with the ex- 
ception of Imogene and myself, had supper 
in the cabin. Neither of us attempted to eat 
anything until noon next day. We have each 
had a good salt bath and cold shower every 
morning, and from now on expect to prove 
more seaworthy. I managed before my final 
collapse to crawl to the bath-room and re- 
serve the hours from six to eight, mornings, 
for our baths. We have twenty minutes 
each, and can exchange with one another. I 

10 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

take William with me, and he dearly loves 
to splash about. 

Nurse has been extremely good about 
everything, and fought hard before she gave 
up, although she expected to be sick, for she 
suffered everything when she came from Eng- 
land. She has behaved splendidly, and she 
saw that the boys were attended to even in 
her most wretched moments. You need not 
mind about arranging to have the children 
eat with us on our return voyage, for it is per- 
fectly satisfactory at their special table, and 
the steward is very careful and obliging about 
their food. The meals are very good, and 
the children have everything they like and 
should have : good milk, rare beef, chops, 
cereals, stale bread, etc. We have just had 
beef-tea, crackers, and sandwiches on deck, 
and the boys very much appreciate tea and 
cake at four in the afternoon. Of course it 
is unusual dissipation for them, but the sea 
air has given them such appetites that I feel 
I can break through my rule of letting them 
eat nothing between meals. We find our 
state-room most comfortably located, and the 

11 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

service all very good. Storing six of us away 
in that tiny box of a place, with only four 
berths, seemed at first sight a stupendous un- 
dertaking. But it was accomplished and we 
are not too crowded. William sleeps most 
of the time and is as good as gold. He lies 
at the foot of my berth and never stirs all 
night. John and Joe are together in the 

berth above me. Margaret C is in the 

other lower berth, and nurse above her. 
Imogene is in another state-room. 

Sunday evening, June 29. 
The birthday party was a grand success, 
and every one within sight of it seemed to 
enjoy it very much. The boys had their 
paper caps, and the three candles burned in 
spite of the breeze. The cake, which was 
about three inches in diameter, was speedily 
devoured, and William took the Brownie, 
which was injured on its journey, to the doc- 
tor to be mended. Really, I am like Ikey : 
" I 'd be ashamed to tell " you the compli- 
ments I hear on all sides about them and their 
training ; but I suppose, knowing your inter- 

12 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

est, that I may be permitted to state mod- 
estly that they are exceptionally good. They 
obey without discussion, and are always in 
their berths at half-past six, besides taking 
their usual naps. They have the best kind 
of times all day long, and receive so much 
kind attention from all on board that some 
one has named our party the " Royal Family." 
Their great rough coats, belted and strapped 
and buttoned, are just the thing, and they look 
very mannish in them, with collars turned up 
and tails flapping at their heels. Their caps 
to match we fasten with wide elastic to the 
top button, and they walk many a mile on 
deck, but only when some one of us grown- 
ups feels like going with them. At other 
times they amuse themselves very quietly in 
their chairs making ships and windmills with 
paper and pencils, or they watch for whales 
that never materialize. Imogene had her 
first meal below this morning. It is funny to 
note William's appetite. As soon as you give 
him anything to eat, he says, " What nelse is 
I going to have ? " and demands a cracker the 
moment he opens his eyes in the morning. 

13 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

July 4. 
We have had another happy day in spite 
of the fog. I spent the time on deck, rolled 
in rugs, making all sorts of plans and dream- 
ing all sorts of dreams for the months to come. 
I propose in making this experiment to find 
out three things : First, whether one can, with 
young children, migrate comfortably for a 
short time to a foreign country, and find it 
profitable and beneficial, physically and men- 
tally, for them all. Second, the actual expense 
of such a trip, the cost of living, as compared 
with that at home. I have always contended 
that the difference in household expenses 
would be enough to pay for the passage 
across. But we shall see what we shall see. 
Third, I propose to find out for myself how 
soon it is possible for a person of ordinary 
intelligence to learn in this way to speak the 
language — actually to speak it. I hope, 
moreover, while accomplishing these things, 
to learn the country thoroughly, to know it 
and the people by heart, and to feel that there 
is at least one little part of Europe that is 
familiar to me. To-night we have had the 

14 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

captain's dinner, and all the little flags and 
lanterns to delight the children, young and old, 
and the ball on deck this evening. We are 
all sorry to feel that we are so soon to leave 
the ship and the one or two good friends we 
have made. 

You could n't have helped feeling well and 
enjoying it as we do. There is only one per- 
son, a man, who did not go down for dinner 
last night, and he was sick with something 
else than 77ial de ?ner. The boys have all been 
wearing ship streamers, and I inclose one for 
Jinifer-Jan. We had your favorite morels for 
dinner last night, but I did not think them as 
good as we have them. They are going to put 
up a luncheon for us to take on the train, as 
we hope to get in to-morrow in time to leave 
at nine o'clock for St. Malo. Every one has 
been so extremely nice to us in every way, 
that, for the first time in my life, I am looking 
forward with pleasure to feeing. 



15 



CHAPTER II 




Cherbourg, July 5. 
ETTING up at four this morning, 
we hoped to see the sun rise, as 
well as to be in good time for the 
anticipated landing at six o'clock. 
But we found a dense fog enveloping us like 
a wet, gray blanket, through which no ray 
of light could penetrate, and in whose folds 
we floundered helpless until noon, when the 
pilot rescued us not far from Havre, miles 
past our port of Cherbourg, very much out 
of our course and in shallow water. It was 
a strange, uncomfortable, ghostly sort of a 
day, the deafening noise of horns and the 
sharp clanging of bells, the chilly wet decks 
dismantled and slippery, the passengers — all 
their comfortable steamer things packed 
away — wandering aimlessly about in shore 

16 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

clothes and hats, the women very much en- 
veloped in veils, of which an astonishing 
number were of a hideous bright green. We 
were glad indeed when suddenly the tender 
loomed up beside us and we were all hustled 
off Soon we rounded the great stone fortifi- 
cation so grandly planned by the great Na- 
poleon and so nobly finished by the little ; 
and then the long-anticipated moment: we 
had our feet on French soil at last ! 

It is an entirely new sensation, this arriv- 
ing in France to live : quite different from 
crossing the Channel and taking in Paris or 
the Riviera en route to some other place ; and 
I feel as if I had never really been here be- 
fore. My experience with the language 
commenced the instant we landed, for our 
baggage, large and small, numbered sixteen 
pieces, and we knew that we should have to 
hurry through the custom-house, for we still 
hoped to go on to St. Malo this evening. 
We had very little trouble, though I shrieked 
some laughable things at the top of my 
voice to the polite officials before I finally 
got all our belongings together, examined, 

17 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

and ready to take to the station. I feel 
quite proud that none of us, neither any of 
our baggage, was put on the Paris train by 
mistake, but I am still wondering what I 
really did give to those porters. When we 
finally reached the Cherbourg station, we 
found we could not reach Avranches before 
to-night at midnight, so we decided to wait 
and go on direct to St. Servan to-morrow 
The manager of the Grand Casino Hotel, an 
unprepossessing man, had told us that there 
was no train we could take this afternoon ; but 
we were cautious ladies, and saw at once that 
this was a snare to get us to his establishment, 
which, apparently, is the most expensive in 
the place. So we turned to a less preten- 
tious person, who assured us that he could 
get us to the train in good time, and that he 
represented the Hotel des Bains; so even 
when we found he was mistaken about the 
train, we left our trunks and got into his 
bus, and told him to take us to his house. 
We were shown to pleasant, tastefully fur- 
nished rooms on the ground floor, opening 
into each other, and a fine large bath, with 

18 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

new and good American fixtures and plumb- 
ing, completed the suite. Great French 
casement windows opened upon a beautiful 
large garden or court with shaded walks, 
fountain seat, and a profusion of gorgeous 
flowers and semi-tropical plants. A fine 
orchestra was playing, and we were charmed 
with everything, but frightened at the vision 
of an exorbitant charge. We could scarcely 
believe that the sum agreed upon — seven- 
teen francs (or $3.40) for our party of seven 
— could be correct; but it was. In New 
York we had paid for accommodations for 
six, without bath, $14.00 for one night. 

It was hot when we landed, but these 
rooms are cool. The walls are hung with 
chintz, and the curtains and all the furniture 
are pretty and Frenchy. But suddenly, as we 
were congratulating ourselves, we happened 
to see on the wall opposite, the sign " Grand 
Hotel du Casino." Behold, those wily 
Frenchmen had brought us here in spite of 
ourselves, and when we went out a little 
later we saw our disdained proprietor and 
our confidence man smilingly talking to- 

21 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

gether, congratulating each other, doubtless, 
on the complete success of their little ruse. 
The Grand Hotel du Casino and the Hotel 
des Bains at Cherbourg are one and the 
same. We submitted gracefully, being alto- 
gether very glad of it as it had turned out. 
At 5.30 we walked across the terrace to the 
beach, where we ate our supper from the 
basket the steward on the boat had packed 
for us, and which we had expected to con- 
sume on the train had we landed earlier. 
The boys were completely happy scamper- 
ing about on the sand, throwing stones into 
the water, and admiring some marvelous 
French windmills, three of which we finally 
purchased for them, at ten centimes (two 
cents) each. Then I put them to bed and 
left them with nurse, and the rest of our 
party started out to see the town and to do 
some shopping. We succeeded in seeing a 
good deal of this interesting place. The 
arsenal is brilliantly decorated for the anni- 
versary of the victory of Wagram, which 
is to be celebrated to-morrow, and all the 
streets are fairly swarming with gay-coated 

22 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

soldiers. Your sons have been good beyond 
words all this long tiresome day, and sat still 
as little mice on the tender. John wishes to 
send you a post-card from here, as he said he 
promised you one. I inclose a daisy he 
picked from somewhere almost as soon as we 
landed. It is still light here at nine o'clock ; 
in fact, we have had no need of artificial light 
while writing. We can scarcely realize that 
you are on the other side of the ocean whose 
waves we can hear now, splashing over the 
sand at the foot of the terrace where we are 
sitting in a glass-inclosed writing-room. 

Sunday morning, July 6. 

You will smile at these ecstasies, but 
really it keeps getting nicer and nicer, and 
it seems too good to be true. We slept well 
on most comfortable beds, and we woke 
finally to see the sun pouring through the 
casement windows. We had our baths and 
walked out in the garden and had such a 
good breakfast, — served in a palm room 
directly on the sea, — just rolls and coffee, 
milk for the boys, but everything so well 

23 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

served; and now we are quite ready to start 
off in search of adventures. 

The girls, Imogene and the Swedish Lady, 
are too happy to speak, in sheer joy of the 
novelty of it all, and want to pinch each 
other occasionally to be sure they won't wake 
up in the States. Our rooms are scrupu- 
lously clean, and everything seems clean here, 
even the dirty, smelly streets. I suppose it 
is the brilliant sunshine. We are taking ko- 
daks, and will have them developed and sent 
soon. I am glad I brought so many films, 
as they are much more expensive here, and 
hard to get. The children are so jubilant, 
they sing and laugh all day long, and really 
are precious beyond words. They come and 
kiss me every once in a while and say, "You 
are the goodest mother, and we are going to 
be the goodest boys." We should like to stay 
here a week or so, but there are other worlds 
for us elsewhere and we are in haste to conquer 
them. 

Hotel de l'Union, St. Servan. 

At rest at last ! That reads like an in- 
scription on a tombstone, but it means that 

24 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

we are seated on a stone terrace, high above 
the sea, with cacti, little birds in little cages, 
and the quaint image of a saint enshrined 
with vines and shells, against the wall back 
of us. 

Away over the broad expanse of water is 
the last of a beautiful sunset, and a new moon, 
which I know you also are watching to-night. 
An old fort on a grand hillside, with the 
spires and villa turrets of Dinard, break the 
horizon-line on one side, and a number of 
little islands and fortifications are gradually 
growing dim on the other. At the end of 
our hotel is a beach where a number of peo- 
ple are bathing, and a background of rows 
and rows of the quaintest yellow, brown, 
pink, and red houses, rising one above the 
other. It seems hard to realize we have been 
in France just twenty-four hours; we have 
done so much and seen so much in every mo- 
ment of that time; it is more like a week as 
we look back. 

In the first place, this morning, early, 
found us settled in a compartment which we 
had to ourselves on the way here from Cher- 

25 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

bourg. We had a never-to-be-forgotten day. 
Pictures strange and beautiful passed in quick 
succession, hour after hour, before our de- 
lighted eyes. We changed at Coutances 
without trouble, jumped from one compart- 
ment to another, and went on to Dol, which 
we reached at about two o'clock. We did 
not attempt to leave the station, where we 
found good water, and so were able to refresh 
ourselves without and within. We wrote 
some post-cards, and Imogene made one or 
two additions to her collection of pitchers, 
and we all had a good rest, and a little after 
four o'clock we were on our way again, this 
time crowded in with several others. 

Arrived at St. Servan, we were soon inside 
a rickety old bus and, with the luggage piled 
on top, we went rattling over the roughest 
cobblestone pavement, through the most fas- 
cinating old streets, until brought up sharply 
in a sort of alley, misnamed the Grand Rue, 
we entered a hole in the wall; and behold, 
we found ourselves, in the twinkling of an 
eye, in the real France : the story-book 
France of our dreams. A cool, wide hall- 

26 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

way in black and white marble tiles, with a 
great emblazoned stone fireplace, led us to a 
grand salon with red-curtained windows over- 
looking the sea; and the air was scented 
with the delicious odor of ascension lilies 
and sandalwood, the former in great vases 
on the table. Rows of lovely old china and 
silver caught my eye in the room beyond, 
and not even the thousands of moths, no 
less, that fluttered up and down the old wind- 
ing stairway, could discourage me after that. 
And now a rather pretty Frenchwoman 
in very deep mourning greeted us and 
showed us our rooms on the second floor. I 
have two good-sized apartments that open 
into each other, in the wing, and command a 
view of the sea. The floors everywhere are 
bare, and the furniture is old but nice. And 
how much do you think we are to pay for 
our comfortable quarters ? One dollar a day 
for each of us adults, eighty cents for nurse, 
and twenty cents for each of the children ; 
in all for me, two dollars and forty cents per 
day; and this includes our excellent meals. 
Moreover, we are the only guests in the 

27 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

house, with the exception of two old white- 
haired and most talkative generals from 
Paris, who add greatly to the picturesqueness 
of the place. Only one servant has been 
visible so far, but such a one is equal to half 
a dozen less competent, less willing persons. 
We have been promised everything we need 
for the children, even boiled water and rare 
beefsteak, things hard to get in France. We 
are too tired to sit out longer to-night. The 
sun has disappeared, but it is still light 
enough to see to write on the terrace, that in 
its setting somehow suggests Spain. We 
are fairly surrounded with shrubs and trees in 
pots and tubs; and below us there are some 
chickens wandering about in a flower court. 
From here we have had our first view of St. 
Malo, its grand old walls rising out of the 
dark blue waters, and the last rays of the sun 
tingeing " the Corsair's Nest with its single 
spire " a lovely rosy pink. 



28 




CHAPTER III 

St. Servan, July 7. 
E had a good night's rest and rose 
early this morning, unpacked, and 
enjoyed coffee and rolls in our 
rooms. To-morrow we are to 
have breakfast on the terrace in a sort of little 
summer-house which is furnished with iron 
chairs and tables. About nine o'clock, with 
John and Joe, we started out for a day's ex- 
ploration. We learned last night that St. 
Servan, although not municipally connected 
with St. Malo, is practically what we would 
call a suburb. It is the older and at the 
present time the larger of the two, having 
some twenty-five hundred more inhabitants. 
Even in our short exploration this morning 
we have discovered that it deserves its name 
of the City of Gardens, for every house has 

29 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

one, inclosed in high walls; and through some 
of the tall iron gratings we caught glimpses 
of trellises of apricots, peaches, and grapes, 
and rows of gay-colored flowers; and one 
beautiful old garden had a piece d'eau — a 
basin and fountain — in the center. 

Our hotel is on a street that is literally 
lined on both sides with curiosity shops; and 
as you know my weakness for such things, you 
can well imagine how sorely tempted I am at 
the sight of hundreds of old chests and 
armoires, all heavy and dark with fine carv- 
ing, and at alluring old silver and Breton em- 
broidery. Near by we found the rolling bridge. 
It is a sort of square platform built on a trestle 
forty feet in the air at low water, and running 
on a submarine railway; and the toll is a 
penny. The tide at St. Malo is the highest 
in Europe, and, except Nova Scotia, in the 
world. It rises forty-eight feet at the equi- 
noxes, and at other times the rise is from 
twenty feet to twenty-five. Wishing to cross 
on the pont roulant,^t were shut off by a little 
gate until the passengers were landed, then 
the conductor blew a horn, not a metal one, 

30 




The rolling bridge. 




St. Malo — general view. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

but a real one from some animal (a cow, per- 
haps), and the platform crept on its funny 
spidery legs over a sort of inner bay. We 
landed near the Port St. Louis, close by all the 
trams and steamboats, and decided not to stop 
in St. Malo, but to take the tram at once to 
Parame. We found Parame proper to be a 
local French watering-place, full of new and 
pretentious villas, with high walls and flowers 
everywhere, but few trees. It seemed dusty 
and unattractive to us as we viewed it from 
the streets, but evidently it has a large num- 
ber of summer visitors, both French and Eng- 
lish. The beach, which is the finest by far 
that I have ever seen, is no doubt the chief 
attraction. The season for these parts does 
not begin until the 15th of July, when the 
casinos are opened. We also went through 
Rotheneuf and Rochebonne, both of which 
have good beaches. By changing trams, we 
saw St. Ideuc, which has a quaint church and 
the house where Jacques Carrier is supposed 
to have been born, or lived, or died, we 
could n't quite remember which. This and 
St. Joseph are both rustic villages about three 

33 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

quarters of a mile from Rochebonne. They 
contain many good houses and some chateaux, 
with fine gardens and grounds, belonging to 
the Breton nobility and to good French fam- 
ilies. Some of these, which were the most 
attractive to be seen, could be had at most 
reasonable rents, but as neither of the villages 
is on the coast, we shall not consider them 
for ourselves. We went on to the little vil- 
lage of Guimorais, a little way beyond, where 
the Parame and St. Malo golf links lie along 
the edge of the sea, most picturesque and full 
of hazards. 

A man on the tram told us that one of 
these holes is supposed to make the famous 
" Hell " at St. Andrew's seem child's play, but 
the course is neither so good nor so popular as 
the links of the Dinard Club at St. Briac. We 
got back late for luncheon, rested awhile, 
and then took the boat to Dinard. We 
really should not have attempted this, as we 
were pretty tired, but we were so anxious to 
get the letters which we knew must be wait- 
ing us at the banker's, Jean le Cocq. We 
found that to take the boat we had to go to 

34 




The quay below the Tour de Solidor. 




Dinard — Le Prieure, 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

the quay below the Tour de Solidor, which 
is a famous tower built in 1382, during the 
reign of Duke John of Brittany. The struc- 
ture is scribbled over with the names of Eng- 
lish prisoners confined there during the Na- 
poleonic wars. It is still used as a prison, but 
the old fisherwomen knitting on the rocks at 
its base, with their fresh caps gleaming in the 
sun, look anything but warlike. There were 
numbers of them on the wharves with huge 
wicker baskets and nets, waiting for the right 
turn of tide to be taken home in the square- 
sailed luggers that were being loaded with all 
sorts of queer things. The ferry-boats leave 
here every houx, and the trip across the 
bay is beautiful ; the wooded hillsides on the 
opposite shore are crowned with old towers 
and chateaux. We saw the river Ranee, 
wide and shining in the distance, suggesting 
all sorts of delightful trips we mean to take on 
it some fine day. Dinard is most imposing — a 
beautiful sight as we approached it. By sheer 
good luck, an Englishwoman was on the ferry 
who was also going to the bank, so we did 
not have to inquire the way, but simply fol- 

37 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

lowed her up a steep hillside until we came to 
it. We found several letters. We did not 
try to see anything of the town itself, but took 
the next boat back. On our way from the 
wharf to the hotel, we purchased for two francs 
the dearest, tiniest little bird in a cage, to take 
to the children, who were nearly wild with de- 
light over it. While we were eating dinner — 
the boys were then in bed — the little thing 
squeezed through the bars and flew away. 
To-morrow we intend to take our luncheon 
and go to spend the day at St. Briac and St. 
Lunaire, prospecting. We have no gas in our 
bedrooms, but use candles, and these poor 
hotel people, who are so good to us, evidently 
are putting a brave face on a bad situation. It 
is sad to see the long table d'hote all decorated 
with flowers, laid for perhaps fifty, and Justus 
five to dine, and an elaborate menu, served so 
well by the one trusty retainer. There is a 
cook, though, somewhere in the lower regions, 
for mademoiselle has already confided to me 
that this personage occasionally gets drunk.. 



38 



CHAPTER IV 




La Petite Mouette, 

July lo. 

UESDAY morning bright and 

early we started out for St. Briac 

and St. Lunaire, with my mind 

made up beforehand that the 



former 



>lace should be our home for the 
summer. I don't need to tell you that one 
of my best beloved theories has always been 
that if you really want to do a thing you can 
do it, provided you wait long enough and 
don't forget it in the meantime. What a 
long time ago it was that Cousin Katrina 
returned from France and told me of a fur- 
nished house with a garden, near the sea, 
that could be had for four hundred francs 
for the season. I made a little note of it in 
my address-book, " Mme. Illy, St. Briac, 
3 39 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

France, $80," and there it stayed for some 
six years or more. You remember last 
spring we sent two letters, one to Mme. 
Illy at St. Brieuc, and another to Mme. Illy 
at St. Briac. Katrina was in Japan and not 
handy for reference, and " even the best of 
writing becomes illegible with age," so we 
could n't be quite sure which it was, as both 
places are in Brittany on the northern coast. 
You know what a very satisfactory response 
we had from the latter place, saying that the 
said Mme. Illy still lived, still possessed 
such a house, which she would be delighted 
to rent for the same sum, and answering all 
of my other questions. Yesterday, at the 
bank, I found another letter from her, 
politely offering to do anything in her 
power to make us comfortable, and to help 
to find us a suitable place, as her own house 
has been rented to a family of my compa- 
triots. 

You can imagine, therefore, with what sat- 
isfaction I found myself actually on the 
tram bound for St. Briac itself It took us 
about an hour to get there from Dinard, and 

40 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

it is a beautiful ride. We took William 
with us, so did not lack for entertainment, as 
he was in rapturous spirits. When we 
arrived at the terminus, we inquired for 
Mme. Illy, and, after much directing and 
misdirecting, finally reached the place where 
she now lives, but only to find her absent. 
She returned presently, a short red-cheeked 
bourgeoise dressed in deep mourning, as so 
many of the women here seem to be ; and 
she was most kind, and understood my French 
at once. She took us to see a typical French 
house. Marguerite Villa, the exterior very 
nice indeed, but stuffy and full of uphols- 
tered furniture and ornaments within, very 
far from our ideal. It was too near the vil- 
lage, and had no beach, except a public one, 
which is a quarter of a mile away. It was a 
large brick mansion, with very fine gardens, 
and could be rented for eight hundred francs, 
or less. Mme. lily's own house, she tells 
us, has a beautiful large garden, which fur- 
nishes vegetables as well as fruit and flowers 
in profusion. This is the one which, you 
remember, rents for four hundred francs. 

43 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

In the meantime, while we were looking 
over this house, an obliging young lad who 
had offered to fetch us a carriage to take us 
to the station came up to tell us that the 
vehicle would soon appear. While we 
were waiting he showed us from a near-by 
rise of ground just the view you see on the 
picture I send. He said the house, with the 
little chapel among the trees, was his 
father's, and the one with the tower was his 
also. I asked at once if the latter were for 
rent, and he said he did not know, but if we 
would go up with him he would see. We 
drove up a winding way through no end of 
wide fields, and past a fine iron gate, until 
we came to " The Little Sea-gull," as this 
delightful place is called. When Mme. 

X , our young friend's mother, came 

out, we found she was a Scotchwoman, and 
spoke English, of course. She was most 
cordial and showed us the house at once, 
though she said she did n't know whether 
her husband would rent it. I no sooner 
crossed the threshold than I fell in love with 
it. If it had been especially prepared for 

44 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

our use this summer, it could not have been 
better. My own room, which is the best in 
the house, is hung with blue and white 
print; everything in it is blue; and the 
household linen is hemstitched and beauti- 
fully embroidered, strangely enough, with my 
own initials. After I had walked through a 
flower-lined avenue of trees, across a lawn 
with a fountain, to find madam's husband, I 
was shown into a most attractive drawing- 
room to await his coming; and it did not 
take me long, when he finally arrived, to 
decide that I would accept his offer, which 
was one thousand francs for the season, in- 
cluding beach, terrace, and garden of our own 
overlooking the sea. There is also spring 
water — in fact, everything I could wish. 
We said we would come next day, and they 
promised it should be ready; so then we 
went away without their asking our name or 
I knowing theirs. The people at the hotel 
had been most kind, but there were many 
things unmentionable which made us quite 
willing to leave. We spent the next morn- 
ing marketing, and succeeded in getting all 

45 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

the groceries, meats, vegetables, etc., which 
I wished to take with us. Despite some 
twenty pieces of luggage, we had no trouble 
in getting across the bay by boat, and from 
Dinard here by wagon and carriage, all for 
the sum of fifteen francs, although it is ten 
miles, and everything had to be transferred 
four or five times. We found the house 
being made ready for us, and that coal, oil, 
milk, bread — in fact, everything we needed 
— had been ordered. But, the best of all, that 
very night arrived Francine, and I engaged 
her with joy upon the spot, for she is the 
very servant whose picture I have had in my 
mind's eye these many years : strong, clean, 
willing, and a real cook, apparently. She 
has promised to do all of our work, washing 
included, for ten dollars a month, and bids 
fair to manage the affairs of this little house 
in capable fashion. We seem to fit into the 
house exactly and to have plenty of space ; 
and you may believe it was with a sigh of 
elief that I went to bed in my pretty little 
room and slept the sleep of the just. To- 
day everything is unpacked ; we bathed on 

46 




Fiancine. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

our own beach, from our own bath-house; 
have eaten of our own fare, from our own 
table, served by our own handmaid; and 
to-night we feel that we are really at home. 
Not really, for there is, of course, one thing 
missing, but I was glad to learn from the 
two letters which I have received, and which 
were welcome indeed, that you are not 
enjoying being deserted. I have been think- 
ing about that girl we once met at dinner, 
who said her ideal of perfect happiness was 
to be a widow with two children, so that she 
could take them abroad to be educated. I 
find that her ideals and mine differ. We 
have a bell at our gate, and if you should 
ring it some fine day, I can safely say that 
you would not be greeted coldly by any of 
us ; so do not think because we are so satis- 
fied with our surroundings that we don't 

miss you. 

July 12. 

" La Petite Mouette " is a combination of 

villa, fortress, and farm-house, and I am quite 

sure you have never seen any house like it. 

On one side there are neither doors nor win- 

49 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

dows, and the unbroken wall, solid and mas- 
sive, looks as if it might resist even more 
severe bombardment than the terrible wind 
they tell us it was built to ward off. The 
tower is all windows ; that is, two big double 
French casements open their wide glass 
doors and let in floods of sunshine and 
plenty of pure air on each of the three 
floors. These doors stand ajar most of the 
time, and we have hung the big wicker bird- 
cage on one side, and the jar of poppies 
stands on the other broad stone ledge be- 
neath as I write. Francine's horror at this 
tempting of Providence and courant d'air 
cannot be described. 

How shall I tell you of the beauty of the 
views from every one of these windows, or 
the freshness of the air that sweeps over the 
moors from the sea to keep us cool? In 
the living-room and my room there is a 
broad bay thrown out, with three windows 
at the side and two in each end, and in 
a little triangle between it and the tower a 
beautiful tea-rose has grown to be almost a 
tree, every one of the great golden-hearted 

50 




I 



La Petite Mouette, showing the lodge and the chateau Les Essartes 
across the wheat- field. 



^' .. 




La Petite Mouette from Les Essartes, 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

blossoms making a lovely picture with the 
glossy dark-green leaves against the rough 
stone. All the windows have cream madras 
curtains — those of the two bays are gathered 
into rows of puffs; and down-stairs I have 
had a pair of heavy sateen portieres put up, 
so that they can be drawn when the sun be- 
comes too trying. These last are brown, 
with peasants sporting under greenwood 
trees, surrounded by cows and ducks, and 
each little picture is wreathed in poppies 
and daisies. There is only one entrance 
door, and this leads from a tiny cement- 
floored court, and is inclosed with a high 
stone-and-iron fence. The walls are covered 
with madeira-vines, and edged with beds of 
brilliant scarlet geraniums and a small white 
flower which is not familiar to me. There 
are only two rooms down-stairs besides the 
small hall, at one end of which is a staircase, 
and under this are the cellar steps. The 
living-room is on one side of the hall, and 
on the other the kitchen. On the second 
floor is my room, and across from it a large 
room with three beds for the boys. At the 

53 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

head of the stairs, which wind round and 
round in a perfect spiral from cellar to attic, 
there is a small toilet-room, but no tub. I 
think the boys will have to take their warm 
baths in the laundry-tub in the kitchen, and 
their cold ones, of course, they will have in 
the sea. On the third floor is the guest- 
room, where Imogene and the Swedish Lady 
sleep. There is a linen-closet across from it, 
and we have also an extra bed there in the 
hall, which is used for Joe's naps. Nurse 
and Francine sleep in separate rooms, which 
they enter by a stairway that leads up from 
the larger courtyard. In this court, which 
opens off the smaller one and is separated 
from it by a high, wide stone wall with a 
red gate, there are many coops for chickens 
and rabbits. Under the servants' rooms 
there is an office and billiard-room, and at 
the other end of the building is a stall for 
Serapolette, a little donkey that is a most 
important member of our family group ; she 
is a pretty little beast of the famous Brittany 
stock, but at night — this perhaps is due to 
many naps during the day — the ceaseless 

54 




Serapolette in the paddock. 




Inside the court by the rabbit-hutches. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

beating of her tiny hoofs on the stone floor 
would annoy sleepers less sound or less good- 
natured than Francine, who is her nearest 
neighbor. In her room and nurse's there are 
fine old Breton armoires which reach to the 
ceiling and are made of chestnut, black with 
age; and they have beautiful silver hinges 
and locks. I have a wild longing to shut 
Francine up in hers and ship her in bond 
from St. Malo to New York when we leave 
here. The kitchen has a stone floor and the 
walls are of rough plaster. There is a big 
dresser or cupboard for the dishes in one 
end, and a large square of pine boards hung 
over the table with hooks for the small uten- 
sils, spoons, etc. Under the big window is 
the bench where Francine washes the clothes, 
and beside it is the sink and the pump. The 
walls of the living-room would just suit you, 
for they are hung in red chintz, and the big 
willow arm-chairs, six of them, are cushioned 
and backed with the same material. The 
way Francine plumps up these cushions 
every morning would fill your tidy soul with 
joy. After each meal we put a big square 

57 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

of the red chintz on the oval-shaped table, 
and, by setting a lamp in the middle of it, 
quickly transform the apartment from din- 
ing- to living-room. There are also six small 
wicker-bottom chairs, a great wicker couch 
with high back and arms, which is most 
comfortable, a five-decked table, two small 
serving-tables, and the big corner sideboard. 
This last holds all the glass and the pretty 
big-flowered dishes of Quimper ware. The 
five-decked table, which is quite different 
from anything of the kind I have ever seen, 
is really ^vt square shelves placed one above 
the other in a pyramid. Each shelf has a 
little railing around it, and we have filled it 
with a pitcher of flowers, my writing mate- 
rials, work-basket, books, and dozens of other 
things. It is a sort of gigantic " curate's as- 
sistant," and is going to prove even more 
useful. 

The boys' room is hung in pink and 
white, and the bedspread, table-covers, and 
chairs all match. Across the entire bay-win- 
dow in my room there is a large slab of mar- 
ble supported by three chintz-hung shelves, 

58 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

and above this there is a mirror between the 
windows. This forms a commodious and 
very pretty dressing-table, and there is a big 
cupboard in each room, with a mirror in its 
door large enough to serve as a pier-glass. 
All the floors are covered with a heavy inlaid 
linoleum in a pretty pattern which so exactly 
resembles matting that at first we thought 
it was really made of straw. The halls and 
stairs are bare, polished, and very slippery, 
and this morning, starting down from a visit 
to Margaret and Imogene on the third floor, 
I slipped and rolled down like a shot in the 
tower, bumping at every step. Fortunately, 
I was not very much hurt, but I was badly 
bruised, and the buckle of a new pair of low 
shoes was battered to bits. Our beds are 
perfection, thoroughly good in every way, 
and the linen is real linen. The dusters and 
towels are marked " meubles," " d'argen- 
terie," etc., and everything is tied in dozens in 
neat piles on the linen-room shelves. We 
don't furnish a single thing, nor is any one sup- 
posed to do so when renting a house here, but 
of course it is n't at all typical of Breton fur- 

59 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

nishing in general. This house is distinctly 
Parisian, as are all the villas which are fur- 
nished for summer occupancy. I am going 
into all these minute details so that you may 
be able to picture to yourself just how we 
are situated here. The weather exactly suits 
us, and it seems there are really no hot days ; 
and although the sunshine is brilliant, we 
can always walk in it unprotected and be 
comfortable. We have slept under heavy 
blankets every night so far. I shall have to 
describe our environs in another letter — 
to-morrow we are going to visit St. Malo, 
and I must go to bed, as we want to get an 
early start. But I simply must add a word 
about the poppies. Surely never flower or 
weed was scattered so broadcast over a land 
before, and you can imagine our keen delight 
when first their wealth of scarlet bloom, 
flaunting over every garden patch, orchard, 
field, and wayside, greeted our eyes. The 
country is simply overrun with them, and 
while nothing could be more gorgeous, and 
I revel in them here, I can't help thinking it 
must be very bad for the crops. I remember 

60 




William drives Serapolette to the village. 




Mr. Wu on Serapolette. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

reading once in a paper at home of a sena- 
tor's wife whose love of beauty was evi- 
dently stronger than her common sense, and 
who never traveled without dropping the 
seeds of these poppies from her car win- 
dows. I rather fancy that the constituents 
of that senator would be liable to withdraw 
their support for another term if they knew 
to whom they owed the advent of such a 
foreign and despotic usurper of their good 
farm-lands. But while I am in such a prac- 
tical mood I had better consider the amount 
of extra postage I shall be obliged to put on 
this letter, and stop instanter. 



63 



CHAPTER V 




July 14. 
HE days are just flying by, and 
each one more pleasant than the 
last. Yesterday we went to ex- 
plore interesting St. Malo. I am 
going to put down all I have learned about 
it here in your letter, because it has been a 
good deal of trouble for me to look it up, and 
I want to keep it for reference some day. So 
even if all these old dates don't interest you, 
forgive me for it and save this letter. To 
begin with, St. Malo is a queer old seaport 
and fortress, built solid over every inch of a 
small granite island at the mouth of the 
river Ranee, and is connected with the main- 
land only by a long causeway, known as the 
Sillon^ a word meaning a furrow. In the 
eighth century St. Malo was only a rock called 

64 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

the Isle of Aaron, and was occupied by a few 
fishermen; but when, in the times of the 
Norsemen, the ancient city of Aleth — now 
St. Servan — was ruined by pirates, its in- 
habitants and its bishop took refuge on the 
rock. The cathedral was built in the twelfth 
century, and St. Malo was n't really a town 
until long after that, for its real prosperity 
dates from the discovery of the New World ; 
and since that time its maritime exploits, ex- 
plorations, and commerce have made it fa- 
mous. It was the row of East India mer- 
chants' houses — really wicked old pirates 
they were — that was the first thing to attract 
our interest as we landed outside the ramparts 
yesterday. Great solid granite rows of them, 
built just alike, with not an inch of space 
between, they have all the grim and forbid- 
ding aspect of huge fortifications. We could 
just fancy those old, black-bearded privateers 
reaching down into their ill-gotten gains and 
handing over thirty million francs in gold to 
help the king to fight the English. After 
we had passed through one of the many 
gates that pierce the outside walls we found 
4 65 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

every bit of the strange narrow streets full 
of interest. At each turn was a different 
picture. We first went to see the castle in 
the center of which is the great keep that 
was breached in 1378 by the Duke of Lan- 
caster. There are a number of fine old 
towers still standing to remind us of the 
ancient days of glory and of the town's 
unique record in the naval annals of France. 
But to us the most interesting of all this was 
the grim old pile with the lofty machicolated 
ramparts built by the Duchesse Anne in the 
Middle Ages, and called to this day " Qui 
qu'en Grogne," because she said when build- 
ing it, " Let him growl who will, it shall 
be : it is my pleasure." (" ^ui cen grogne^ 
ainsi sera^ c'est mon plaisirP^ Then we looked 
up another tower, where La Chalotais wrote 
his memoirs on chocolate-covers with tooth- 
picks, when he was imprisoned there long ago. 
The delectable confections in the windows 
of the many patisseries had kept Imogene's 
sweet tooth fairly jumping all the morning, 
so we went into one of them and chose a 
variety of delicious little cakes for our lunch- 

66 




On the ramparts at St. Malo. 




Resting un the ramparts at St. Mak 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

eon, and I insisted that some sandwiches and 
tea be added for our health's sake. After 
this we took a walk on the ramparts. These 
entirely surround the town, and the views 
from them in all directions are superb, es- 
pecially when one looks across the bay 
toward Dinard. While on top of the walls 
we sat down on one of the stone seats and 
industriously consulted M. Harout's " Guide- 
book to St. Malo," which is full of every 
sort of antiquarian information, such as the 
history of each queer old street, and the 
origin of its name. We also found out 
a lot about Jacques Carrier, Surcouf, and 
Mah^ de Labourdonnais of naval fame, who 
were all born in St. Malo. We caught the 
five-o'clock boat back to Dinard, and, when 
we got off the tram at St. Briac, took a short 
cut home through the fields and across the 
golf links, which are simply matted with 
flowers, tiny pink and yellow blossoms grow- 
ing like moss. We were very tired after so 
much instructive sight-seeing, too tired and 
too late to take a dip in the sea, as we had 
planned to do, before supper. 

69 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

I wish you could taste the fruit here ; such 
cherries, strawberries, currants, raspberries, and 
gooseberries, red and yellow, I have never be- 
held, and so sweet and so cheap. I can pur- 
chase a great cabbage-leaf full of berries for 
three or four cents. Yesterday in one of the 
markets or little stalls we saw a most enor- 
mous strawberry, the largest one any of us 
had ever seen. It was fully as large as a 
good-sized peach. I find that it is never 
safe to go out here without wraps. The sun- 
shine is brilliant and burns our faces, but it is 
seldom hot. Almost always I can sit directly 
in the sun and be comfortable, because of 
the cool breezes. We have had to use our 
steamer-rugs in addition to the blankets 
these last two nights, and to wear our sweat- 
ers nearly all the time by day. It is simply 
delightful — better than any climate I have 
known before. We have had no rain except 
a tiny shower now and then early in the 
morning, which just lays the dust. Every- 
thing is fresh, clean, and lovely. We have 
most enormous appetites, and all are drink- 
ing milk, which is nice and plentiful. I 

70 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

have found out about the cows, and they are 
all right. They are pastured out on the 
moors in plain sight of us, which reminds 
me of one of the boys' favorite stories. 
There are many old women here by the road- 
side, knitting as their cows graze, and each 
time we pass one of them I have to tell 
your sons how St. Peter, walking along one 
day, saw an old woman by the way, and 
asked her how she supported the little grand- 
child who was playing at her feet. She 
replied that it had been difficult to do so 
since her cow died. Whereupon St. Peter, 
striking his staff upon the ground, brought 
forth a wonderful strawberry cow. He had 
scarcely walked on, however, than the old 
woman, thinking how nice it would be to 
have two such fine kine, struck her staff upon 
the earth ; whereupon a great wolf sprang 
out and ate up her cow. As St. Peter was 
walking slowly, she ran to him in great distress 
and told him all, admitting her greediness ; 
so, after rebuking her, he sent her back, and 
she found the strawberry cow safely grazing 
by the child. Joe is especially fond of this 

71 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

beautiful tale, and occasionally relates it 
himself. 

Sunday, July 15. 

This morning we went to service in the 
church in the village at St. Briac. It is very 
large for such a little place, but it was crowded, 
mostly with peasant-women, each with a 
freshly starched and beautifully white cap or 
coiffe. The variety of these coiffes is astound- 
ing. Each woman seems to have a different 
one, according to her age, position, occupa- 
tion, or location ; and the St. Briac, the coiffe 
proper, is one of the prettiest and most be- 
coming that we have seen. It has lace-bor- 
dered stiff wings, upstanding and fastened 
together with a gold pin. 

I understood nearly all of the sermon, and 
the singing and music was very nice; but the 
hacking, coughing, and expectorating, which 
never ceased for a moment, was simply hor- 
rible, and I am afraid I shall not be able to go 
again. The church itself has an ancient, 
beautifully carved tower, which, although it 
is granite, has an airy grace that is indescriba- 
ble. The body of the church is modern, but 

72 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

in its walls, without and in the bottom of the 
big henitier within, are embedded stones taken 
from an older building, with mackerel rudely 
carved on them, to bear witness that the 
church was built for the fishermen out of the 
tithes that they paid from the fruit of their 
toil. Close by is the Chapel of the Thorn, 
a favorite local place of pilgrimage. We 
walked on to see the views from the Lancieux 
peninsula and the Isle Hebihins, which, it is 
said, has a haunted tower. On this side of St. 
Briac the country is richly wooded, a rare 
thing in this wind-swept region, and there are 
beautiful walks around the cliffs, which we 
hope to take sometime in the future. We 
had such a good dinner of fish, firm, delicious, 
and without a bone. Francine is a cook after 
my own heart, and does everything as I tell 
her, although most of our dishes are new to 
her. I try, however, to let her cook things 
her own way as much as possible, and fre- 
quently find it better than mine. Our coffee 
is just the kind you like best, made in a 
French drip coffee-pot of white enamel. We 
all took naps after dinner and to-night are very 

73 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

much "dressed up." We have had our tiny 
glasses of Curasao after supper on the Httle iron 
table down in our terraced garden, which is 
hedged in with honeysuckle, roses, and all 
kinds of flowers, and directly over the sea. 
Across the water are the fine turreted towers, 
moat and drawbridge, and vine-covered walls 
of the neighboring Chateau de Nicey, owned 

bytheCount de V . Abugler's notes came 

across the water from some place near by, and 
after sunset the lovely pinkish gold lingered 
for a long time over the horizon, and then the 
stars came out, and now the moon is shining 
over the pines. The Chateau de Nicey in- 
terests us very much. Modern, 't is true, and 
of course you will say that no man in this day 
has any right, rhyme, or reason for building 
moat or drawbridge ; but I am very glad this 
one did, for the little island is now picturesque 
and imposing and adds so much to our present 
surroundings. At one side among the shrub- 
bery, near the edge of the bluffs in their 
grounds, there is a pecuUar-looking structure 
with many windows and a ship's mast with 
the rigging on top. This, it seems, is a copy 

74 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

of an ocean liner's cabin, and is used for a 
smoking-room. The rigging, on great occa- 
sions, they tell us, is strung with little pen- 
nants, and when the count himself is there, 
the flag floats over it, as on a yacht when the 

owner is aboard. Maurice X tells us 

that the Countess de V suffers from a 

sort of chronic nervous prostration, and is 
obliged to lie in a wheel chair, as a result of 
her injury in the great bazaar fire in Paris, 
and that she has to wear a wig, although not 
otherwise disfigured. " They are not real 

nobility, those Counts de V ," he said 

the other day, " only rich and known in so- 
ciety. One can well see they are not old 
nobility, for they have not even a carriage, 
only a motor car, and he can't run that, this 
poor young count, except into the trees and 
to kill a calf" 

We wait up for the postman every night, 
and he comes staggering tipsily over the fields, 
having had his customary drink of cider at 
almost every stop. He is late to-night, but I 
hope will bring me a letter. 

It would surprise you to hear the phrases 
.75 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

the boys have picked up already. To-mor- 
row Imogene and the Swedish Lady are going 
over to St. Servan for a day of sight-seeing 
and shopping. They tell us the shops are 
better there than in St. Malo, and that things 
are cheaper. This lazy lady is not going 
with them, but intends to have her coffee 
and rolls in bed, not at all from necessity, for 
she never felt better in her life, but simply 
because she wants to. 

July 17. 

Yesterday I spent the morning in bed, as 
I wrote you I intended to do; but while 
there, as my conscience smote me for not go- 
ing with the girls, I spent the time reading 
up about St. Servan, and consequently when 
they got home I knew more about it than 
they did; for instead of searching about for 
all the tiresome places of interest, they wan- 
dered around and bought things and looked 
into the windows, did nothing that counted 
particularly, but just had a good time. They 

had luncheon at the Hotel B V , a 

more pretentious place than our nice old 
Union, but they found it to be dirty, and the 

76 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

prices absurdly high. They brought back 
some hats I asked them to buy for the boys — 
large, loosely woven affairs of coarse green 
straw. Nurse calls them Zulu hats, and says 
the hop-pickers wear them in England. Here 
they cost the lordly sum of twenty-five cen- 
times (five cents) each. 

In St. Servan is the fine old Chateau 
de Versailles, which I want to see next time 
I go, and the " House of the Little Tou- 
relle," so called because it was built in the 
time of James II, when no one but a 
noble was allowed to have a tower to his 
house without special permission from the 
king. Another thing I must surely go to 
see is the portrait of my own Francine in the 
St. Servan town hall, where there is a collec- 
tion of paintings. This one is life-size, full- 
length, and was taken when she was a young 
girl by an artist of Paris, with whom, evi- 
dently, she was a favorite model, as she posed 
for him frequently. 

At about eleven o'clock yesterday morn- 
ing I donned my bathing-suit and went with 
the three boys and our new friends, Maurice 

77 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

and Cecil X , our landlord's children, 

to the beach. The path that leads to it winds 
round and round, first through pine-arched 
walks to a little gate, and then between hedges 
of salt-bush, before it reaches the flight of 
broad steps, cut in the rock, that lead down to 
the water. This salt-bush grows very high 
and is a pale grayish green, and the leaves 
have a peculiar salty taste. M. Maurice's 
aunt from AustraUa, who is here on a visit, 
says it grows in great profusion there. Our 
beach could n't be finer. It is a semicircle 
of smooth, bright, shining brown marble 
sand when the tide is out, without a pebble 
or drift of any kind, except here and there a 
lovely shell. Some of these are of a spe- 
cially delicate pink, and very iridescent. 
These we treasure highly, and we are begin- 
ning to collect others, a large, perfectly flat 
variety, striped with salmon and white, which 
we mean to put under the ramekins for serv- 
ing fish. The tide comes up here twice a 
month to our bath-house steps. This bath- 
house is a tiny vine-covered brick box, nes- 
tling picturesquely against the steep bank, 

78 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

with steps cut in the rock down to the sand. 
As we dress here at the villa, the boys use it 
as a play-house, and keep their spades and 
pails there. I took down my bath-thermom- 
eter and found the water w^as 64°, but it 
did n't seem cold, and we enjoyed it thor- 
oughly, and got back to dinner feeling most 
fit. There is absolutely no danger in the 
water, as the beach is so level and flat that 
even Cock Sparrow, as we have got to calling 
Master William, has no fear ; though last year, 
at Magnolia, Massachusetts, you remember, 
he had no love for the sea. Both the young 

X ^'s swim like fish, and are beginning to 

teach John, who is anxious to learn. I think 

Joe will soon be able to float. These X 

children are extremely nice, evidently well 
bred, and are so very good to our boys. They 
are going to take all three of your boys 
shrimping at four o'clock, and later to ride 
in the automobile. 

I am writing now in a big, red-cushioned 
wicker chair, by the great window, which 
is wide open without screens, " for there are 
no mosquitos, and the wind keeps the flies 

79 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

away." There is a great green jug of pop- 
pies and corn-flowers on the wide stone ledge 
beside me, and as I look out across the wide 
fields I see the knolls and grassy slopes of the 
golf links outlined against the deep blue of 
the sea, and in the distance the little Isle of 
St. Joseph, where there is a lighthouse. 
There are five men playing on the links now, 
one with a red coat. All the women here, 
even the peasants, if they are at all dressed 
up, wear gloves. The men also wear them, 
even in warm weather, and it is strange to see 
the elegant ones wearing white kids to and 
from the golf links. A sort of claret red 
appears to be the most fashionable shade for 
smart cloth costumes, and one rarely sees a 
well-dressed woman who has not her face 
hidden by a heavy white lace veil. 

Just across the wheat-field from us there 
is an immense chateau, called Les Essartes, in 
which live an interesting family of wealthy 
Parisians. We have been told that under 
that one roof forty-two of them live together. 
We rarely catch a glimpse of them, however, 
although they are so near us. A fine old 

80 




Between hedges of salt-bush. 



1 




Our tiny brick box of a bath-house. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

lady with a white pompadour drove up there 
yesterday, and two young women dressed 
in white, with white sunshades, walked down 
the path past my window to-day. Once or 
twice some children have run out on the 
porch, but otherwise the chateau might as 
well be empty, for most of its great wooden 
shutters are barred all the time. There is a 
bell which rings three times a day for meals, 
and an automobile goes past occasionally, so 
we know that it is really occupied. 

Some little girls about John's age are 
raking the hay in the fields near us and piling 
it on to a great cart; and' most of the cad- 
dies on the links are small girls. 

We found some rare and lovely thistles to- 
day. They have sharp-pointed, exquisitely 
cut grayish green leaves, shaped like holly 
and veined and edged with white. These 
leaves grow in clusters on thick, smooth, 
pinkish stems. Each regular cluster is 
crowned with a deep blue blossom flecked 
with pink, like a huge clover. Of course 
the boys all promptly pricked their fingers 
on the sharp points, but we succeeded in 

83 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

gathering several bunches to bring home. 
As we were returning with them, John said, 
" Would n't it be nice if father was in the 
window, waiting to surprise us ? " 
And I quite agreed with him ! 



84 




CHAPTER VI 

July 19. 

NTIL last night we wondered 
why the umbrellas of the angular 
gentlemen on our blue pitchers 
were turned inside out, but after 
hearing the wind howl around our tower 
from sunset until dawn, we understood. 
Such booming of cannon, whipping and 
tearing of sheets, sudden great blasts that 
seemed to threaten to carry villa and all the 
surrounding landscape in one fell swoop far 
out to sea, I never heard before. All of this 
went on incessantly outside our tightly 
closed wooden shutters until this morning; 
then the sun came out bright and clear, and 
although the wheat was slightly ruffled and 
a good many poppies had lost their petals, 
the rest of the country-side was serene and 
undisturbed. 



85 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

After dinner this noon we all started out 
with baskets and pails to fish in the sand, as 
it was low tide. All our world was there, 
and many others besides, in the most curious 
costumes. Mine consisted of a blue linen 
suit pinned up over my bathing-suit skirt, 
red stockings, and my white bath-shoes. 
Most of the other women were barefooted. 
Cock Sparrow's Zulu hat completed my cos- 
tume. Cecil, Maurice's sister, had a regular 
fishing-suit of white duck piped with dark 
blue, and made with bloomers to her knees, 
and a sort of smock belted at the waist. We 
dug and dug, and you can imagine how the 
boys enjoyed it, and how good was their 
supper of cockles that they had gathered all 
themselves. Joe worked like a very Trojan 
and got more than any of us. Nurse suc- 
ceeded in getting some langon^ which are 
the hardest of all to catch, and are con- 
sidered a great delicacy. They are a shiny 
little fish of the eel family, a little like 
white bait, about the size of a small smelt. 
We have enough of these for to-morrow's 
breakfast. We also got some crabs and clams 

86 





Ready to dig for lan(jon. 




John and a lobster-trap. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

for soup. After two hours of vigorous 
exercise I was completely tired out and 
climbed back over the rocks to the house, 
where I slept like a log until half-past five. 
This morning John and Joe went with Cecil 
and Maurice to St. Briac in the donkey-cart. 
Cock Sparrow, nurse, and I took a new way 
over the fields. A path up the hill next our 
paddock took us past a fine old place called 
Ker Briac. This has large, well-situated 
grounds full of pleasant walks and fine 
shrubbery — on the other slope of the hill 
and facing La Chapelle, which is the name of 
that part of the village which is nearest us. 
The villa is a large three-storied building 
with many iron balconies. There is a vine- 
covered lodge, and the place is for sale for 
thirty-five thousand francs, or it can be rented 
furnished by the year for twelve hundred 
francs. There were two other villas near by, 
with rows of fig-trees and limes. Then we 
came to a pretty path with willows arching 
overhead, which led us to the entrance of the 
Chateau de Nicey. Turning to the left, we 
followed along the road beside the beach 

89 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

until we came to the main street of St. 
Briac itself. The sea is everywhere here ; 
no matter where we look, the deep blue 
edges every view, for the coast-line is par- 
ticularly irregular at this place. The village 
is a fascinating spot, larger than I had at 
first supposed. Most of the shops are clus- 
tered close about the church, but the old yel- 
low stone houses and winding streets spread 
out in all directions. Over nearly every door 
there is a great bunch of dried mistletoe, 
which Mme. Illy tells me is a sign that 
they sell cider within. I shall never tire of 
the beauty of the enchanting old gray 
stone walls ; everything grows on their 
broad slanting tops : St.-John's-wort, wall- 
rue, spleen-wort, polypody, scaly-wort, ivy- 
leafed toad-flax, orpine, snapdragon, — with 
the finest velvety blossoms we have ever 
seen, — (the boys play " bunny mouth " with 
them all the time), wallflowers, wild pinks, 
roses, and even hollyhocks, sunflowers, and 
great gorgeous patches of broom; while 
grasses, little vines, and the ever-present 
poppy peep through each and every crack 

90 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

and cranny. There is scarcely a building 
without a garden of some sort, or at least a 
plot of ground in front of it. Grape-vines 
and roses cover the sides of the houses, and 
geraniums grow to the stature of young 
trees. There are carnations and amaryllis 
blooming in pots on every window-ledge. 
These flowers do for their cottages what the 
caps of the peasant-women do for their cos- 
tumes : they cover a multitude of sins. 

The great advantage of La Petite Mouette 
is that, while we enjoy every comfort in 
carrying out our experiments, our life here 
is so different from anything we could ever 
see in America that it holds for us a never- 
ending delight and fascination. 

Between St. Briac and Dinard, and in 
and near St. Servan, we. saw many seven- 
teenth-century manor-houses, most pictur- 
esque and attractive to look at from the 
outside, and I have no doubt that they are 
really Breton within, and probably have 
polished floors, built-in beds, and scarlet- 
lined cupboards, such as we read about ; but 
I fancy they have not the sanitary arrange- 

91 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

ments necessary for people who live as we 
do. As for the real little stone cottages of 
the peasants, with their dirt floors and dark 
interiors, they would, of course, be out of 
the question for all but the most hardened 
bohemians. Our situation, so far from the 
village, facing these wild sea-girt moors, 
makes life seem adventurous and romantic, 
yet in reality we are near enough to trust- 
worthy neighbors to' have the feeling of 
security which is necessary to women alone 
as we are. Our iron gate, which has a bell 
that rings when it is opened, locks at night, 
but the great entrance gate to the grounds is 
left unbarred for the coast-guard to pass in 
and out. Every night he and the dogs at 
the chateau keep watch while we sleep. 

Maurice's mother, Mme. X , tells us 

that there have never been thieves about, 
and that the guard is kept to intercept 
smugglers who might try to land with con- 
traband goods. Some more children have 
arrived at the chateau, and there are now 
three little girls who wear Russian blouse 
suits exactly like those of our boys, and the 

92 




The great entrance gate to the grounds. 




A view from the tower window (La Petite Mouette). 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

same Zulu hats, so that once or twice, see- 
ing them at a distance, nurse has mistaken 
them for our children and called them to 
come home. All the children here ar^ 
dressed most sensibly, the girls and boys 
alike until quite well grown. The little 
boys wear their hair so long that it is quite 
impossible, seeing them playing together, to 
tell which is which. Among the peasant^class 
the boys wear a sort of pinafore apron, and 
all the girls wear bloomers. John wishes 
me to tell you that he can find all the cut- 
tlefish he wishes to on the beach, and that he 
intends bringing some home to give to Mar- 
garet A 's parrot. This morning, while 

Cock Sparrow and I were taking a run 
through the fields before breakfast, we came to 
a tiny patch of clover, and I said, " If father 
is coming very soon to surprise us, I find a 
four-leaf," and there one was tout de suite, 
I wished before I picked it, and inclose it 
now, so my wish surely must come true. I 
laughed when I read in your letter last night 
that you expected soon to hear that things 
here had lost their glamour, and that we are 

95 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

experiencing the unpleasant side of it all by 
this time. This morning, as I looked down 
the queer old street at St. Briac, then up at 
the deep blue, and at the brilliant sunshine 
and the riotous bloom of flowers every- 
where, I felt almost dizzy, it still seemed so 
strange and unreal, but so altogether de- 
lightful, and there were nurse and Cock 
Sparrow waiting for me in an old boat on 
the beach near by to make me realize that it 
is really true. There are dozens of little 
beaches and a number of big ones about 
here, and most of the villas and chateaux 
have private ones. Your sons are trying to 
be " six feet high, like father wants us to be, 
before we go home," and they are enthusi- 
astically consuming numberless pieces of 
bread and butter and great bowls of milk. 
Cock Sparrow slept sixteen hours out of 
twenty-four yesterday, and is a little picture, 

he is so rosy and fat. 

July 21. 

Maurice X cut me a copy of Chateau- 
briand's " Martyrs," and yesterday we made a 
pilgrimage to the Hotel de France, in St. 

96 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

Malo,toseethe room where this famous author 
and vico7nte was born. This morning we got 
► up very early and took the train from Dinard 
to Dol, changing cars there for Combourg, 
which is but a few miles distant from it, and 
where there is a beautiful chateau, the home 
of the Countess of Chateaubriand and her 
daughter, the last representatives of the fam- 
ily. It is one of the finest chateaux in Brit- 
tany, perfectly enormous,ivery old, but kept in 
good condition. The living-rooms are not so 
large as one would imagine them to be for the 
huge structure it is, and they have become a 
little English and modernized. The castle is 
still a grim, secure fortress, with a turret at 
each corner. It dates almost from the Nor- 
man era, and the walls are twelve feet thick. 
It is open to visitors every Wednesday. The 
family are still strict royalists, and see as little 
of their republican neighbors as their ances- 
tors in the MiddleAges saw of the bourgeoisie. 
The castle occupies a knoll overlooking the 
village, and we went up an immense flight of 
steps to the first floor. Of course the place 
of greatest interest is the turret chamber shown 

97 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

as Chateaubriand's own. There is nothing of 
interest to see at Dol except the cathedral, 
which is a very fine one ; but we were too tired 
to go and see it to-day, and waited in the sta- 
tion until our train came along. Reached 
home again late for supper. It seems quite 
natural now to climb the hill after a day 
spent, as this has been, in sight-seeing, and to 
have three little curly-headed figures come 
flying down the path to meet us and to hold 
our hands on the way back to the house, and 
with just time to kiss us good night before 

they go up to bed. 

July 23. 

I have just finished a letter to your Aunt 
Phena in Sevnier, England, asking hertocome 
across and visit us for a week. I imagine 
they are rather lonely now since their Amer- 
ican guests have left them. Last night it 
rained and rained, our first real downpour, 
and to-day has been gray and drizzly — show- 
ers every few hours, and the sea a deep pur- 
plish blue. This morning we got out all the 
rubber boots and coats, and the three fisher- 
men and I started for a long walk over 

98 




The girls wear Russian blouse suits like boys. 




Maximilien and Eugenie, with some of their cousins. 



LofC. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

the moors. On our way we met Marie 
Louise, the gardener's wife, with a basket of 
the most delicious red-and-white cherries, 
with which she filled our pockets. So we 
had a picnic on the long beach between La 
Chapelle and St. Lunaire, which was a most 
enjoyable affair. It is pure joy to walk here; 
the air is more than elixir : it is positively 
champagney. We never get tired, and the 
flowers are a constant wonder to us. I un- 
derstand that these moors and the links are 
considered very like Cornwall, and I am 
learning the names of all the different things 
that grow on them. The bright blue flow- 
ers are the sea-holly; the yellow poppies are 
the sea- or horn-poppies, and have bright green 
fleshy leaves ; and the broom is the planta 
genistae, which gave one family of kings its 
name. It grows in enormous hedges and 
bushes, sometimes trimmed like yew, about 
five feet high, and is a most brilliant yellow, 
said to be the brightest known to botanists. 
I think this is the same plant that your 
friend, who wrote that book about Ireland, 
described as a variety of furze known there 

101 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

as whins. He says that there it is used by 
the farmers as food for their horses : that they 
pound the prickles into pulp in a stone 
trough, and that, when it is so prepared, 
horses eat it with great relish. I suppose 
this is why I have sometimes heard it called 
broom-corn. To-day, treading the mossy 
masses of pinkish purple heather on our 
moors in the heavy mist made me feel like a 
Scottish heroine, but your sons soon made 
me realize that, in spite of my romantic sur- 
roundings, I am still naught but an Amer- 
ican mother. We got back in a drenching 
shower just in time for naps and to dress 
for dinner, which was especially Frenchy to- 
day: first, good soup; then delicious fresh 
mackerel, small enough so that we each had 
a whole one ; green artichokes, very tender 
and good, with a cream dressing made of real 
cream; and then salad and cheese in little 
cakes. It would do you good to see Cock 
Sparrow eat his artichokes French fashion ; 
also to see him kiss your picture every night, 
w^hich he began doing of his own accord and 
never forgets to do. Yesterday we were 

102 ^ 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

highly entertained by a wandering Italian 
with a dancing bear that jumped around out- 
side the gate in the road for some time, and 
the boys threw down sous from their window 
into the man's tambourine. It is so cold to- 
day we are glad to wear our winter suits, and 
I am writing in my ulster. My Quimper 
green jug, a beauty for which I paid ten 
cents, unfortunately had not been baked 
properly, so it leaked. I have been experi- 
menting, rebaking it in our oven to-day, and 
behold, Francine brought it in just now sound 
as a drum. The girls got a fine set of pic- 
tures illustrating the different stages in the 
manufacture of the ware at Quimper, and the 
Swedish Lady intends to make a wheel as 
her original model for sloid, so that she can 
make another to use in school next winter. 
Perhaps we may have time to go over to 
Quimper and Quimperle before they go. 
This reminds me that yesterday we went in 
the afternoon to the fabrique de Faience 
d'Art, a most interesting pottery near here, 
owned by a great fat man with a black 
beard, who was at one time a member of the 

103 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

Chamber, and has since turned socialist. He 
is making a lot of money out of the lovely 
green and blue things we saw there, most of 
which they send to America. It is like our 
Grueby ware, but not so good. You asked 
about my French. I have n't settled down 
in real earnest yet, but expect to start to- 
morrow. I have intended right along to get 
some one to give me lessons, but I finally 
decided that it is practice that I need, not 
precept, and Mme. Illy, who is proving her- 
self an invaluable friend, has finally secured 
a young girl who will come to the villa when- 
ever I want her. She is to embroider some 
linen for me, and it is understood that she is 
to talk all day long. She was born in Paris, 
and has been educated in a convent at Mar- 
seilles. Her accent is good, and the work 
she does is exquisite. I am not trying to 
teach the boys at all, but they are picking up 
words, and even phrases, and can make Fran- 
cine understand their wants without assis- 
tance — in some miraculous fashion. If you 
could hear them call, " Pas touch' allez-vous- 
en," " Venez ici," and " Tout d'suite," you 

104 




A view of La Petite Mouette showing the grounds. 




Mme. Illy. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

might easily imagine that they had learned a 
great deal more than they really have. I 
read somewhere that it takes an Englishman 
or an American from fifteen days to three 
weeks, half an hour a day, to acquire what 
a Russian could learn in two or three days, a 
Pole in one or two, and an Italian or a German 
in three or four. Francine knows only one 
word of English, " gute," — so you may know 
that I am speaking something that is not my 
native tongue. 



107 



CHAPTER VII 




July 26. 
A petite Mathilde, I'brodeuse," has 
been spending two days here 
at the villa, and yesterday we 
took the boys to St. Malo. At 
first it was rather hard to carry on a con- 
versation with Mile. Mathilde, as there were 
so few topics of common interest ; but I soon 
found that she is glad to talk about her fam- 
ily and friends, and the second day I 
asked her to recite some songs and verse, 
and I attempted to relate to her some fables, 
and then had her repeat them to me. Then 
I had Francine come in, and I listened while 
their tongues fairly flew with village gossip, 
all of which is to me an informal but practi- 
cal method of language study. A never- 
failing topic, I find, with the French people, 

108 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

is the weather. One never meets another, 
apparently, without stopping to discourse 
about it, and ten minutes is a short time to 
devote to its various phases. One season is 
compared with another, and yesterday with 
to-day, and all sorts of prognostications are 
made for the morrow. As a rule, no matter 
how smiling the sky, they are dissatisfied, 
and one never listens to them long without 
hearing " le vilain temps " repeated more 
than once by each. Of course it was a great 
treat to the boys to be taken to St. Malo, 
and we started out in high spirits. They 
wore red gingham suits, red socks, and their 
English sandals, and we carried their red 
serge coats with brass buttons. Through 
the kind forethought of Mme. Illy, a 
young girl, a friend of hers, met us at the 
boat, and with her assistance we were able 
to see a great many things in a much 
shorter time than would have been possible 
if thrown on our own resources. First we 
went to see the museum, which contains 
the most remarkable collection extant of 
European birds, some seven or eight thousand 
6 109 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

species. We also saw there the remains of 
the ship La Petite Hermine^ m which Jacques 
Cartier sailed to discover Canada. We then 
went to the fish-market, where we saw many 
strange sea-monsters, dogfish, huge pieces of 
conger-eel cut off for soup, and pickled cod 
tongues, which had been brought back from 
Newfoundland and dried at St. Servan. All 
this delighted the children, and afterward we 
had a fish luncheon at little tables on the side- 
walk at the edge of the fish-market ; and a 
fisherwoman with a baby strapped on her 
back sang Breton songs and collected her 
alms in a great conch-shell. Some chil- 
dren at a table near us were dipping 
cakes into glasses of red wine. After lunch- 
eon we went up on the ramparts that over- 
look the sea, and there I told the boys as 
much as I thought they could understand 
about the pirates. East India merchants, and 
famous navigators. They were especially in- 
terested in the legend that not only the little 
islands in the Gulf of St. Malo, but the Chan- 
nel Islands also, once formed part of the 
mainland. Coming down, we went to the 

110 




The little terraced garden where Mrs. Head Gardener sewed and read. 





La petite Mathilde. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

place where they weave baskets, and ordered 
rnade two big bath-chairs and a little cradle 
to take home to America with us. Then we 
went out across the sands and quays to the 
Grand Be, where we had quite an ad- 
venture. The Dinard boat, which at low 
tide leaves from here, was just puffing away 
as we reached the end of the quay. There 
were a number of men and boys fishing, and 
we sat down to watch them and wait for the 
next boat. All of a sudden we found that 
the tide had crept in on us, and that in a few 
minutes it would be over the sands and we 
should be cut off from the mainland. Some 
men came up and took some of the people 
off in a sail-boat, but we preferred to run pell- 
mell to the shore, which we reached just in 
time. John was very much frightened, but 
he did not let go of a little dead fish which 
he had picked up, and we brought the 
clammy little thing, wrapped in a bit of sea- 
weed, back to the villa with us. The boys 
had been promised that if they were very 
good during the day we should have some 
brown sugar on our bread and butter when 

113 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

we returned ; so, as they had all behaved very 
well indeed, they had their promised treat. 
We always have the same breakfast and 
supper: plain bread and butter and milk, 
occasionally some jam or honey or a little 
ripe fruit, but not always. 

My expense-book is all in French, and I 
balance it every Saturday night. I inclose 
some holly leaves picked from our grounds, 
the first the boys ever saw growing; which 
reminds me that I have never described the 
walks on our place. There are any num- 
ber of them, all hedged and shaded, turning 
in and out, up and down the beautiful hilly 
point of land, which has been very carefully 
planned and laid out. It seems that a Baron 
Somebody, who first owned this estate, spent 
twenty-five thousand dollars in trees, shrub- 
bery, and m.asonry, and that the point was 
originally barren as the moors. There are 
many little terraces and stone-turreted em- 
bankments and lookouts placed here and 
there, in each case because of some especially 
enchanting view. There are rows and rows 
of flowers, and all kinds of shrubbery, and on 

114 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

one especially high point of land at the ex- 
treme end of the tiny peninsula there is a 
white marble chapel, curiously striped with 
red bricks, embowered in great creamy 
bunches of hardy spiraea. It has some beau- 
tiful stained-glass windows, and a bell in the 
tiny belfry, which was rung for meals. Just 
below this chapel, about a hundred rods 
down the rocks, there is built a circular look- 
out, like a tower, and from within its stone- 
capped ramparts we never weary looking 
eastward toward St. Malo, or westward over 
the Bay of St. Briac. Nothing can express 
adequately the views we have from here. 
The bold coasts are broken by a succession 
of small deep beaches and ragged cliffs, 
which fall away presently to the mouth of 
the Fremur River. The water is ever chang- 
ing in color, surface, depth, and beauty with 
each passing tide, wind, or cloud. To-night 
I have just been watching the magnificent 
sunset from another lookout at the far end 
of the grounds, and wishing you were here to 
see it with me. It has started in to blow a 
perfect gale. The whitecaps are whipping 

115 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

up all over the sea, and we shall have to shut 
our big wooden blinds. It reminds me of the 
storm in "The Martyrdom of an Empress," 
which took place somewhere near here. It 
must be glorious here in the autumn. 

July 28. 

I now give John a French lessorj, every 
morning, and he is very proud and pleased 
and interested, but it is hard to keep him 
still long at a time. I think he prefers draw- 
ing, for which he really shows indication of 
talent. The boys keep me well supplied 
with flowers of all kinds, and we are begin- 
ning to find mushrooms in some of the 
fields. 

The shells on our beach are much more 
varied and of prettier colors and shapes than 
on the North Shore, and nurse has found 
many treasures which she intends to take to 
England when she goes. This is one of 
Joe's good-looking days, and you would be 
chortling if you could see him. That word 
chortling reminds me of something that has 
caused me some thought recently. These 

116 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

foreigners speak so correctly that it makes 
me realize how lax we are — at least, I am. 
Some one has said that we Americans lack 
linguistic conscience, and that we have little 
pride of language form. I am afraid that 
there is truth in this. I must really use bet- 
ter English if I am to expect my sons to 
speak correctly as they grow older. 

The personal habits of the peasantry are 
far from pleasant; I realize more and more 
how fortunate I am to be up here far 
away from all the smells and dirt, and in a 
house built and run on English ideas of 
sanitation. Moreover, Francine is the clean- 
est French person hereabouts. Every one 
thinks I pay an exorbitant price for this 
villa, and I realized at the time that it was 
about what I should have had to pay at 
Dinard; but I am glad, altogether, that I 
took this little place. The grounds and 
beach are better by far than anything near 
here, and while I could have had a larger 
and more elaborate villa for half the price, 
some of them with very nice grounds and 
gardens, they were either so isolated that we 

117 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

women would have been afraid to stay in 
them alone, or so near the town that I should 
have been annoyed by the noises and other 
unpleasant things. The Villa Clary is the 
only other house about here for which so 
large a rent is asked; but it would require 
the services of a number of servants to run it 
properly. Near by is another villa in a very 
pretty garden, surrounded by fig-trees. This 
has more rooms than La Petite Mouette, and 
can be rented for five hundred francs, half 
what we pay, or just what ours would be 
without the grounds. Two villas are build- 
ing on some charming grounds called the 
Palms, which will be ready for rent next 
season. These have open fireplaces in every 
room and are especially desirable. Each 
has five bedrooms in all, and will rent fur- 
nished at from five hundred to six hun- 
dred francs. These are very secluded and 
near the Nicey beach. Of course in La 
Chapelle and St. Briac itself there are a num- 
ber of little cottages, with pretty gardens like 
pocket-handkerchiefs in front, which can 
be had for from two hundred to three hun- 

118 






Allant au de Nicey. The beach at low tide. La Petite Mouette. 




On the rocks beneath the circular lookout at low tide. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

dred francs for the season, three or four 
months, as one pleases. In Dinard, of course, 
rents are much higher and vary from five 
hundred to fifteen thousand francs a month. 
They have gas and city water there, and in 
some of the villas electric lights also. " Jean 
le Cocq, Banker," and the "Maison Rouge" 
are the two agencies, but when house-hunt- 
ing in St. Briac the best way is to look 
about for one's self, as we did. I think that 
almost any of the villas could be rented, but 
the rates are to be haggled over with the 
owners, remembering never to accept the 
first price, and to consult some one, if possi- 
ble, before accepting the last as final. Half 
of the season's rent must be paid in advance, 
but this should not be done until everything 
required in the way of furnishings has been 
supplied. 

The Frenchmen here, for the most part, 
wear knickerbockers, and the Englishmen 
appear usually in white or very light-colored 
trousers. No one wears black shoes of any 
kind. Some have tan leather, but usually 
men, women, and children wear low canvas 

121 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

shoes with rubber soles. Contrary to all 
reports, we have not met a dishonest or 
impolite person since we landed. Every one 
has been most kind and obliging, and we 
have not had the least bit of trouble about 
feeing. It is a constant surprise, and a 
pleasant one, that we can go about unpro- 
tected in the sun as we do. The other day 
I walked three miles over the moors at noon, 
when the sun was intensely bright, without 
the slightest discomfort from the heat. I 
went past the English golf club-house and 
all over the links. It was the French 
"Fourth," and there was a fete, with fire- 
works in the village in the evening; but, as 
usual, we went to bed when the sun set and 
did not attend the festivities. Francine went, 
of course, and I urged Link to go with her, 
but she did not care to do so. It is quite 
remarkable, however, the way she gets on 
with the people she meets, as she does not 
know a word of French. The people here 
everywhere are devoted to children, and all 
seem to have young hearts. Wednesday is 
the especial time set aside for beggars, and 

122 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

they are allowed to go everywhere on that 

day, and on that day only. Mme. X 

advised me to lock our gate then, as she gives 
them bread enough for us both. At first 
Francine took a few centimes out of her 
allowance " pour le pauvre," but I told her 
that I would attend to that. It is cold to-day 
and the wind is blowing. I imagine that 
we shall have some severe storms in the 
autumn. So far we have had no fog nor 
any rain to speak of More people have 
arrived at the chateau, and we see more of 
them than we did at first. I passed two of 
the men, — quite elder]^, they were, — and 
one remarked most pointedly, in French 
of course : " You see, 't is true what I tell 
you, that the Americans are more pretty 
than the English." 



123 



CHAPTER VIII 




Jersey, July 31. 
JESTERDAY morning, when we 
left the harbor of St. Malo on the 
Victoria for a four days' trip to 
Jersey and Guernsey, we had 
quite a scare. The sky suddenly clouded 
up and orders were given to clear the decks 
and prepare for a gale. All the luggage 
was put in the hold, the decks were cleared 
and the canvas awnings taken down, and I 
had visions of all sorts of dreadful things, 
but nothing came of it except a dark sky 
and a penetrating blast. The waters re- 
mained smooth, but we were thoroughly 
chilled through by the time we reached St. 
Helier. While the trip to Jersey is not as 
much of an excursion from France as when 
one starts from England, one has the curious 

124 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

sensation of traveling a long way in a short 
time ; for the complete change in everything 
— climate, language, weights, money, and 



ROYAL 

"temperance J^ofel, 

BROAD STREET, 

St. Heller's, Jersey, 

Deab Sir, — I beg to inform 
you that I have a splendid 

141 H EO®M 

in the above Hotel. 

Charges : — Sixpence Cold or 
Warm ; Extra Hot, Is. Your 
patronage will oblige^ 

I remain, 

Dear Sir, 

Yours obediently, 

E. MOUKANT 



A souvenir of Jersey. 

food — is all crowded into a short three hours 
of travel. Just before landing we noticed 
with interest the strangely brilliant rocks 

125 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

along the coast, white like purest marble, 
their jagged tops rising from the blue water 
in sharp contrast to their bases, which were 
covered with seaweed. I at once determined 
to investigate their formation, but soon 
learned that a recent thorough application of 
whitewash accounted quite simply for the 
dazzling whiteness. Our first meal at a 
second-class English hostelry drove us to a 
French table d'hote, which we found at the 
Pomme d'Or. Later we indulged in gin- 
ger-ale, which we bought for the bottles, or 
rather jugs, of lovely gray stone adorned 
with the Jersey coat of arms. We hired a 
carriage and started out to do the island in 
earnest. A half-hour up and down and in 
and out of the narrow streets left us with 
the impression that immaculate St. Helier 
was much larger, more prosperous, preten- 
tious, modern, and commonplace than we 
had supposed. Then, fortunately for our 
peace of mind, our good-natured but indo- 
lent young driver started for the country. 
This was better; and we were delighted 
with the charming old lanes (of which 

126 




> 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

Vinchelez Is only one of many), and with 
the quaint little gardens. It was hilly and 
the scenery delightfully varied, while the 
luxuriant growth of all things astonished as 
well as pleased us. The oaks, not sturdy 
like ours, but with slender trunks gnarled 
and twisted and bare of branches, but covered 
thick with ivy, rose out of hedges of laurel, 
holly, figs, and almonds; and occasionally 
there were fuchsias, or honeysuckle waving 
over old stone walls, while tree-tops thickly 
interwoven met overhead across the narrow 
little roadways. 

The islands have home rule in its best 
sense, and each has its own parliament and 
judiciary. Moreover, the people pay no taxes 
except their own, which are not heavy, and 
have no representation in the English Par- 
liament, and do not wish any. However, 
they used to pay the Queen of England — the 
Duchess of Normandy, as they preferred to 
call her — certain seigniorial rights: so many 
fowls, capons, and eggs, which are now trans- 
lated into coin of the realm. We drove 
the entire breadth of the island, with Gr^ve 

129 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

du Lac as our destination, but so slowly 
did we go, we might have walked with a 
saving of time, patience, and pence. About 
midway of our journey we saw a most pic- 
turesque thatched house, the roof upheld by 
the great white jaw-bone of a whale, and in 
the foreground, grazing, a Jersey cow, the 
only one we saw while on the island ! Fields 
everywhere were filled with upturned pota- 
toes being boxed for Covent Garden, and 
we remembered having read that the whole 
island had been given up to their culture, 
and that most of the farms were now worked 
by French laborers. They, the natives of 
Jersey, detest anything French, however, 
and refuse to accept French money except 
at a usuriously extortionate rate of exchange, 
as they do not want its use to become gen- 
eral on the island. We saw also the famous 
cabbages, ten feet high, some of them look- 
ing like young trees, and purchased a cane 
made from oi.e of their great stalks. But we 
saw nothing else of especial interest to " trip- 
pers," as they call excursionists like ourselves. 
In vain we related to one another the 

130 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

indisputable facts that New Jersey — "an 
island in Virginia" — was given to Charles IPs 
brother, the Duke of York, and that in 1650 
a great ship laden with passengers, merchan- 
dise and goods of all sorts, set sail from this 
same harbor of St. Helieron this same island 
of Old Jersey, bound for the New, and was 
captured by the Parliamentarians just outside 
the port. It is in vain that we remember 
the still more astounding incident that dough- 
nuts and baked beans are eaten here for Sun- 
day breakfast and did not originate in Bos- 
ton, and that the Jerseyites call pie " pie," 
and not " tarts," as all the other English do — 
surely bonds of sympathy, these, to any good 
American. Still the fact remains this is not 
the enchanting island of our dreams. 

Jersey! The very name had thrilled us 
since our first geography lessons ! And what 
is lacking ^ The cows ? We know they are 
somewhere, although not in sight, for every 
shop-window is full of shining milk-cans of 
every size and of many different metals, and 
in jewelry the miniature milk-can is the Jer- 
sey emblem. No, it can't be the cows; but, 

7 133 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

whatever it is, something is wrong. At any 
rate, we shall leave here without regret, em- 
barking on the little " ketch " Sarnia this af- 
ternoon. What " ketch " means none of us 
know, but it is a boat evidently, presumably 
a small one, and on it we are to start for the 
sister island of Guernsey. 

Guernsey, August l. 

** O ever happy isles. 

Your heads so high that rear. 
By nature strongly fenced. 

Which never need to fear. 
By Neptune's other realms 

When ^olus raiseth w^ars. 
And every billow bounds 

As though to quench the stars." 

So sang Michael Drayton, who three 
hundred years ago evidently made some 
such same passage from isle to isle as we 
have just accomplished. The channel be- 
tween Jersey and Guernsey is credited with 
being able to do its abominable worst at the 
point of embarkation for St. Peter's Port, and 
at one part called the " Swinge " is surely an 

134 




o 

o 



6 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY^ 

example of an Inferno on earth — or a remnant 
of the ancient tortures of the gods. In 
crossing we recalled with horror, as we sat 
pale and wretched, dreading inexpressible 
things temporary and final (some of which 
eventually occurred), what we had read of 
unhappybeings who had pitched up and down 
its fathomless hollows, between billows that 
bounded "as though to quench the stars," 
for some two days before they could land and 
be out of their misery I But nothing so ter- 
rible happened to us, and in the ordinary 
course of time, a little less than three hours, 
we were safe in St. Peter's Port. 

This island was originally called Greensey 
(lie verte or green island), and has even 
more tropical verdure than Jersey, being 
nearer the Gulf Stream and having more fog. 
The fields are extensively used for raising 
flowers for the English markets. We have 
taken all of the many excursion routes, leaving 
the hotel each morning on the tops of the 
great cars or coaches ; but I shall not attempt 
to describe any of these to you now. I want 
to hurry on to our visit to Hauteville House, 

137 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

which was one of the special things that we 
wanted to see here. It is where Victor 
Hugo wrote " The Toilers of the Sea." And 
later we went to St. Sampson, where the scene 
was laid. This house, where Victor Hugo 
lived in exile from 1856 to 1870, still con- 
tains many souvenirs of his life and work. 
In his own room are some curious carvings 
he made himself He was much given to 
designing grotesque things of the sort. Un- 
doubtedly he inherited this talent from his 
grandfather, who was a carpenter — but this 
is something Hugo would never admit him- 
self We saw the balcony where his poor 
wife, the Adele Foucher of his recent " Love 
Letters," used to sit darning stockings and 
wishing she were dead, as she told one of 
her friends in a letter of her own. We 
looked into the great dining-room, which 
contained some of his work in wood, and 
where he so shamelessly entertained the 
actress who took no pains to spare Mme. 
Hugo insult when this famous and dis- 
tinguished author chose to keep them under 
the same roof. From the glass-inclosed 

138 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

upper terrace, where he used to work in 
early mornings, we could look far out to sea, 
and could easily imagine what inspirations 
that glorious view must have given him, 
although we looked in vain for the chair of 
Gild-Holm-'Ur, the rock whereon Gilliatt 
died his impossible death. 

La Petite Mouette, 
August 3. 

You can imagine that it seemed very 
good to get back to our home and find three 
little brown boys who had been good and 
happy as could be during our absence. 
They were simply enraptured with the rope- 
soled canvas shoes we brought them, and 
they had a little bird the gardener had 
caught for them in the cage to show me. 
Nurse was delighted with some English bis- 
cuit and barley-sugar candy we brought her, 
and fairly shouted when she beheld the 
familiar ginger-beer bottles. 

Our visit to Guernsey was all very well, 
but the chief and real object we sought was, 
alas I missing, for a still more fatal disap- 

139 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

pointment awaited us there than we ex-- 
perienced in Jersey. " Hamlet " without Ham- 
let could not have been worse, surely, than 
Guernsey without lilies. Had not our fancy 
always pictured rows and rows of them, as 
in Contrary Mary's garden*? Nay, many 
gardens — whole fields of them — we had ex- 
pected would greet us when we landed. 
Did we not know well the story of the great 
bark, an English vessel, in the reign of 
Charles Stuart, returning from Japan laden 
with these lily roots {Amaryllis sarmensis)^ 
and wrecked in this treacherous channel so 
near home ? And of the little brown bulbs 
that floated over the waters when they 
calmed and finally reached shore at Guern- 
sey, embedded themselves in the warm sand, 
and there sent up their shapely cups of white 
and gold, poised so proudly on tender green 
stems, to astound the simple islanders who 
came that way "? And how it was not until 
years after that a governor of the island had 
them transplanted and sent some to England 
to Charles II ? But they never flourished 
there or in Jersey as they did in Guernsey, 

140 




o 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

and nowhere else can they be made to blos- 
som a second time, except with great care. 
Sad, 't is we ourselves who have to relate 
that fields of empty upturned furrows, or 
withered stalks with a few yellow seed-pods, 
were all that remained to tell us that the lily 
season in Guernsey for this year is over. 
Some photographs, our tea, — which none of 
us drank, but which we enjoyed smuggling 
in under the very noses of the French cus- 
tom-house officials, — a copy of " The Toil- 
ers of the Sea," and our cabbage-stalk cane, 
together with an unexplainable but un- 
pleasant sense of disappointment, were all 
we brought back from our long-anticipated, 
much-talked-of trip to the Channel Islands. 
We slept well after our travels, and are to 
start day after to-morrow for Cancale. Our 
little bird was dead in its cage when we 
found it this morning, and is to be buried on 
the beach before we bathe at eleven. The 
boys are perfectly happy all day on the beach, 
and build fine houses of stone and sand. 
Nurse seems to enjoy sitting down there 
watching them as much as they enjoy their 

143 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

play. She is hemming some linen for me 
which Mile. Mathilde will embroider when 
she comes to " converse " with me to-morrow. 
We are doing as much sight-seeing as pos- 
sible before the Swedish Lady and Imogene 
have to leave me and I settle down to real 
rest and the study of French. 

Have Winters sow the inclosed poppy 
seeds all over the beds and on the sides in 
the children's garden. Now is the time they 
are sowing themselves here, and I hope they 
will come up there next spring. I will bring 
more later in case these are winter-killed. If 
they should come up well it would be a 
grand surprise for the boys. John gathered 
all these seeds himself while we were away. 
They are used here baked on top of the 
bread. Nurse is out trying to gather some 
corn-flower seeds to send with them. I like 
them growing together, as they do in the fields 
here. 



144 



CHAPTER IX 




La Petite Mouette, 
August 5. 

EFORE I relate our adventures at 
Cancale I must tell you of a ter- 
rible storm that swooped down 
upon us last night. After supper 
I started out with nurse for a walk over the 
moors in the rain. We went over to the 
links on the edge of the sea and watched the 
glorious breakers. We fought our way step 
by step, the rain stinging our faces like hail, 
and as we climbed knoll after knoll we 
became well-nigh exhausted. At last we 
reached a sort of sand gully which led to a 
road that finally brought us to LaChapelle and 
thence home. I went straight to bed, but not 
by any means to sleep. The storm kept getting 
worse and worse, and was beyond descrip- 
tion. I never imagined anything like it in my 

145 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

life. The sound was continuous — like the 
booming of great cannons, the tearing and 
whipping of cloth, shrieks, whistles, and moan- 
ings indescribable. All our great window- 
shutters were closed, and the cracks of the 
windows padded with rolls an inch thick of 
chintz like the hangings, but nothing could 
have softened much the fury of that storm. 
The house did not rock, and I was not afraid. 
Joe was in my room and kept talking in his 
sleep, and once or twice I drowsed off in a 
sort of nightmare. 

Eight o'clock this morning Francine 
brought my coffee, and announced that it 
was fete-day and that the village would be an 
interesting sight. The wind was still high 
and the sky dark and threatening, but we all 
dressed in our warmest clothes and started 
forth. Maurice and Cecil soon overtook us, 
and Joe and Cock Sparrow rode with them 
in the donkey-cart. We found the streets 
gay with booths and peddlers' carts; and, in 
some, pens of little pigs were crowded close 
together. The prize ones were marked on 
their backs with blue chalk. We bought 

146 



C/5 
C 











5; 




A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

some great round Brittany cakes and then 
came home, all the children much pleased 
with such unusual dissipation. Maurice said 
they were all worried thinking how fright- 
ened I must have been last night, and said 
they have seldom known a worse storm. I 
wish I could picture to you the unspeakable 
fury of that wind, but unless you had heard 
it yourself you could not conceive how terri- 
ble it was. Our tower faces the moors and 
the sea, without a tree, shrub, or building to 
break the full force of the wind ; but it is of 
stone and strong, for it never swayed a hair's- 
breadth. I can well understand why one 
whole long side of this house, and many 
others I have seen, was built without win- 
dows; also why so many of the villas have 
double glass windows as well as great shut- 
ters. . 

Our day in Cancale was interesting, and 
we had a very pleasant little adventure there. 
We took the steam-tramway from St. Malo ; 
and less than an hour's ride (fare eighty-five 
centimes) through typical French farms, level 
and prosperous, their fields of tobacco, cab- 

149 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

bages, and wheat edged alike with rows of 
mutilated sycamore-trees, brought us to the 
fishing village of Cancale, which they say 
here is the largest oyster market in the world. 
The blue waters of this bay are covered with 
boats, five thousand of which start out at one 
time to trawl for oysters. All the fishermen 
are first blessed by their priest, who stands on 
the sands, a ceremony made famous by Fayen- 
Perrin's picture. On their return, the oysters 
are put in beds or parks that cover nearly five 
hundred acres of the beaches. 

The women are extremely large, and as 
they stride about among these beds in their 
huge sabots, they seem like men in petticoats 
and coiflfes. We saw no beauties among 
them, yet the whole place reminded us of 
"Guenn," and also of Pierre Loti's "Pecheur 
dTslande." I am very glad you are reading 
"Guenn," and hope you will find time to read 
the other also. Both of these stories give 
one a very good idea of Brittany, although 
their scenes are laid in the western part of 
the real Brittany, near the cape. Cancale 
itself is about half a mile from La Houle (or 

150 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

village) and has some six thousand inhabitants. 
After we reached the bay we discovered that 
we should not have time to get dinner at the 
hotel if we were to take the tram back that 
night. And this led us, with our usual good 
fortune, to the pleasantest part of our visit. 
We were tired and hungry, and dreaded 
another climb back up the hill to the village ; 
but at its top we found a little patisserie 
painted green, where madame, the proprie- 
tress, gave us a most delicious tea in her own 
quaint little living-room, and graciously per- 
mitted us to admire her garden. At one end 
of this was a little brick building where her 
husband, a fat individual in an immaculate 
white coat and cap, baked the confections 
displayed in the shop. There were rows of 
rose-trees, and in the center of the garden 
a big wicker cage of brooding canaries. 
We came away laden with the choicest blos- 
soms, compliments, sweets of all kinds, and 
a delightful memory of this glimpse of real 
French home life and kindness. One of 
their roses stands in a wine-glass on the table 
as I write, and I shall never forget madame's 

151 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

bows and smiles when I told her we had had 
the nicest time we had had in France (fully as 
many " hads " as that, or their equivalents in 
polished French, if you please ; anyway she 
understood what I meant, and gave us two 
compliments for every one of ours). 

I did n't see the yellow and brown sails 
I had expected on the luggers, but I sup- 
pose that was because most of them were 
anchored in the harbor with their canvas 
down. 

We had read that the fisher-men and -wo- 
men over there were not hospitable to 
sight-seers, especially the English and Ameri- 
cans, on account of somebody's sometime 
injudicious attempts at proselyting; but we 
did not notice anything of the sort, except 
that the hotel people did not like it because 
we ignored them for tea at the dear little 
patisserie. 

If I could have a rub at Aladdin's lamp 
to-night, it would be to wish that you could 
be transported here, and could bring the 
library fireplace and plenty of wood with 
you. 

152 




Five thousand of these little boats go fishing for oysters. 




Cancale — retour de la peche. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

August 7. 
To-day the children have been playing 
over at the chateau across the wheat-fields. 

Mme. S sent them a polite invitation 

some time ago, and since they have been 
allowed to visit there several times, nurse 
always going with them. The little children 
seem very nice, although most of them are 
rather delicate. There are so many of them, 
and they have such good times, that of course 
the boys enjoy going there, and I suppose it 
is good for their French. Two of the chil- 
dren have had an English governess from 
their babyhood, some eight or ten years. I 
was surprised to find what sensible things 
they have to play with. The nicest of these 
is a huge sand-box in the shape of a boat. 
It has a real mast and sail, and furnishes 
endless amusement. Our boys get on very 
well with the others, although I fancy much 
of their conversation is done in some sort of 
sign-language. The chateau itself is an 
enormous rough sandstone barrack of a 
place, and is built directly on the edge of 
the sea and moors, without a tree about. It 

155 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

has a deep and wide porch and huge win- 
dows, and seems very comfortable, but entirely 
unlike the American seaside villa.. It is full 
of all sorts of strange and interesting things. 
It appears that one of madame's sons, the 
father of Maximilien, made his fortune in 
China, and the gorgeous embroidered hang- 
ings and wall-coverings of the dining-room 
and some of the chambers are trophies he 
brought back with him from the Orient. 
They also have a Chinese cook. Nearly 
every room harbors strange birds, some 
stuffed and some alive, and there is a fisher- 
man who lives on the place and makes 
boats. He, of course, is the object of Joe's 
most special admiration. This afternoon the 
boys wore light-blue linen Russian blouse 
suits, and looked very fair and precious in 
them. Whenever Joe goes anywhere he 
wants to wear his white sailor suit, which, 
you will remember, is the old one of Mr. 
Wu's, and has long sailor trousers, very 
wide at the bottoms. Mr. Wu^ you must 
know, is John's new nickname. He does ask 
so many questions about everything. 

156 




In the sand-box boat at the chateau. 




The sailor. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

You ask about mosquitos. There are none 
in Brittany, at least in this part of it, and no 
screens or nets are considered necessary to 
keep out the flies, which are troublesome 
only when cows or other animals are kept 
under the same roof. Fleas there are, and 
busy ones. However, we have often to con- 
sole ourselves by thinking, " Big fleas have 
little fleas on their legs to bite them, and 
little fleas have lesser fleas, and thus on ad 
infinitum I " We have been told that it is 
not safe to buy any furniture in the village 
stores, and that the old chests and armoires 
should be thoroughly examined before being 
placed in the house. These articles are for 
sale in many places, and can still be picked 
up throughout the country for most moder- 
ate sums. One man recently bought a good 
armoire for less than ten francs, and Francine 
has told me of one which she says is espe- 
cially fine. The doors are entirely and in- 
tricately covered with hand carving, and the 
silver trimmings richly chased. It is very 
large, and has been in the same family for 
over two hundred years. And this, she says, 
8 159 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

she can get for one hundred francs — twenty 
dollars. We can see these armoires in almost 
every house we pass. They stand some eight 
or ten feet high and hold almost anything 
and everything. 

We all have more clothes than we need 
in spite of our two trunks for five. Nothing 
ever seems to get soiled here. The boys 
have worn the same blue cotton suits to play 
in ever since we came, and even nurse's 
aprons stay fairly fresh. 

Hotel de Bretagne, 
DiNAN, August 9. 
£mile Souvestre, writing of this old town 
some fifty years ago, said : " It wears its 
corselet of ancient walls so broken by pretty 
villas, so embroidered by flower-filled gar- 
dens, that it has the air of a young girl try- 
ing on a suit of old armor over a dainty 
ball-dress." Approaching it by water, as we 
did from Dinard this bright summer morn- 
ing, we realized that there is still truth as 
well as poetry in this comparison. The 
broad bays and lake-like expanse of the 

160 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

Ranee, with its rapid currents and lofty 
wooded shores, remind us very much of the 
Sault Ste. Marie River, especially on the 
Canadian side, although in that wild region 
one never sees such picturesque thatched 
farm-houses, such fine old mills and towers, 
and such a quaint hamlet as gray St. Suliac, 
with its ancient church; and before we 
reached the primitive little locks, very differ- 
ent from the magnificent masonry at the 
Sault, all likeness had completely vanished, 
for as we turned sharply at the modern 
Gothic tower of the chene vert which adorns 
a promontory, the river narrowed and 
changed its color altogether. The waters 
here were brown and sluggish, and on one 
side as we passed we saw a fagot-carrying 
boat of Plendihen, with one square-lugged 
sail, and on the other side a queer pulley 
fishing-boat. The ends of the nets stretched 
across rods from the mast. They hold these 
down into the water, and when the fish swim 
over them they are jerked up by the pulley 
exactly as those are which are in use to-day 
on the Yang-tze-kiang in China. As we 

161 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

passed through the locks we were besieged 
by beggars lame, halt, and blind, and we 
noticed that most of the French passengers 
gave them something. As soon as we 
reached the great many-arched viaduct 
Dinan burst on our view, suspended in mid- 
air, embowered in noble trees, and resting on 
lofty ramparts built in the thirteenth century. 
Lying thus, as it does, so high above the 
river, it has an unmistakably medieval and 
feudal appearance. These walls, by the 
way, were built by working-men who were 
paid, it is said, three cents a day. Evidently 
there were no labor unions in those days. 
We got into a bus and were driven to this 
hotel. The houses outside the walls on the 
quays are queer old structures — at least 
four centuries old. From here we com- 
menced the ascent of the ancient approach 
to the city, which was originally the only 
one from St. Malo. This quaint old Rue 
du Petit Port, with its overhanging houses, 
led us to the Porte de Jerzual and the Rue 
de Jerzual, which is unrivaled in this part of 
the world as an example of the long medie- 

162 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

passed through the locks we were besieged 
by beggars lame, halt, and blind, and we 
noticed that most of the French passengers 
gave them something. As soon as we 
reached the great many-arched viaduct 
Dinan burst on our view, suspended in mid- 
air, embowered in noble trees, and resting on 
lofty ramparts built in the thirteenth century. 
Lying thus, as it does, so high above the 
river, it has an unmistakably medieval and 
feudal appearance. These walls, by the 
way, were built by working-men who were 
paid, it is said, three cents a day. Evidently 
there were no labor unions in those days. 
We got into a bus and were driven to this 
hotel. The houses outside the walls on the 
quays are queer old structures — at least 
four centuries old. From here we com- 
menced the ascent of the ancient approach 
to the city, which was originally the only 
one from St. Malo. This quaint old Rue 
du Petit Port, with its overhanging houses, 
led us to the Porte de Jerzual and the Rue 
de Jerzual, which is unrivaled in this part of 
the world as an example of the long medie- 
162 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

book. There is so much of historical inter- 
est here that we cannot begin to describe 
all of what we saw or did. The country 
round about is so beautiful that as we rode 
along in our little old victoria, we could 
scarcely express our delight, and Imogene 
said rapturously : " I am fairly out of adjec- 
tives ! " 

La Petite Mouette, 
August 1 1 . 
To continue the description of our visit to 
Dinan — the next day we started out again, 
through the St. Louis gate this time, along 
the riverside. Presently we turned into a 
pretty lane, and soon reached the Argentel 
valley, where a beautiful path lined with 
quadruple rows of splendid shade-trees leads 
to La Fontaine des Eaux. A little hunch- 
backed girl gave us glasses of the mineral 
water (ferroalkaline) supposed to be good 
for many ills and a tonic for all. Driving, 
or rather walking up the hill to rest our 
good little nag, through rocky, wooded, un- 
used but charming ways, we finally reached 
the magnificent avenue of beech-trees, where 

166 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

numerous young officers were exercising 
their horses, and we drove slowly past the 
old chapel and through the great gates of 
the old ruins of the famous Chateau de La 
Garaye. 

While in Dinan itself we purchased some 
of the Quimper ware, which is cheaper here 
than at any other place in the north of Brit- 
tany. Then, laden down with green, yellow, 
and blue plates, pots, and jugs, we hurried to 
the train for Dinard, caught the last tram at 
the station for St. Briac, and reached home 
in time for supper. Mr. Wu, that is, John, 
proved himself to be an excellent traveler, 
and we surely enjoyed having him with us. 
I did not take Joe, for I felt that he was too 
young to appreciate many of the sights and 
would probably forget it all before we 
reached home. He and Cock Sparrow were 
perfectly content to be left with nurse and 
Francine. As a slight compensation, we 
took them with us to Dinard yesterday 
afternoon, and we purchased for them some 
gorgeous blue and red balloons with little 
yellow monkeys attached in baskets beneath. 

169 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

Lobsters, we find, are quite beyond our 
purses here. Oysters are out of season, but 
have been brought to the door for ten cents 
a dozen, big fresh ones; and at Cancale they 
are served in restaurants at eight cents a 
dozen; at Dinard Mr. Wu indulged in one, 
but he did n't Hke the salty taste. 



170 



CHAPTER X 



L^Jj 


1 


E^it SBw^ 



August lo. 
HE Swedish Lady and Imogene 
left for Paris a little after eight 
this evening. They have been 
delightful companions and I shall 
miss them very much indeed. They were 
loath to leave us, but wanted a few days in 
Paris before going to Sweden for the 29th. 
Ange, the gardener, harnessed Serapolette 
and took, their trunks down to the train him- 
self, but the girls walked. I went to the 
top of the hill and watched them out of 
sight, and, standing there alone in the dusk, 
I reaUzed that now I have only myself to 
depend on, and that I am indeed a stranger 
in a strange land. I came back and balanced 
my books, as I had paid all my accounts 
to-day, including my rent, one thousand 

171 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

francs. This noon I was made happy by- 
three letters from you. It seems they go to 
Paris first, which delays them. I read parts 
of them to the boys, who show no signs 
of forgetting their father. The other day 

Mme. X was telling them how angry 

the gardener would be if they got into the 
wheat and trampled it, and that he, Ange, 
was a very large man and might hurt them. 
Joe said at once : " I 'm not afraid of him. 
He is not nearly as big as our father." 

By this time I have got a very good idea 
of the expense of housekeeping here, and, in 
spite of the rent being more than I had 
anticipated, I find that I still can keep well 
within the limit I had made for myself At 
first I fancied that it would be something of 
a problem to get the provisions here, as we 
are a mile from the tram and fully two 
miles from a village ; but, thanks to the gen- 
eral good will and anxiety of the country 
people to profit all they can from the trade 
of the summer visitors, it is made very easy 
for me. Everything is brought to the door ; 
milk and bread come twice a day, and both 

172 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

are excellent. Only my little blue book 
will ever disclose the exact amount of each 
which we have consumed, but Francine has 
literally carried in bread by the cord — long 
loaves, little loaves, round rings, little rolls, 
and great square chunks, all crisp, fresh, and 
thoroughly baked. Our butter is delicious, 
although some foolish English people at St. 
Lunaire send to Switzerland for theirs. A 
woman brings us butter, eggs, and chickens 
each Saturday. Felix Potin, the great whole- 
sale house in Paris, has branches in St. Malo, 
St. Servan, and Dinard, and a clerk from the 
latter place comes every morning to receive 
our order for groceries, and their wagon 
delivers it the evening of the same day. 
We get some of our vegetables from Ange, 
and the garden is just outside our door, a little 
way down the hill across from the paddock. 
Women with push-carts bring vegetables 
and fruit about three times a week. Vege- 
tables are plentiful, delicious, and very cheap; 
but the fruit, with the exception of the ber- 
ries and the currants, is seldom very good, 
and is, moreover, scarce and dear. Plums, 

173 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

pears, etc., are always sold by the dozen, and 
for melons they never ask less than a franc, 
and sometimes three, four, or five francs 
apiece for them. Meat is not expensive 
and is good, although it is said that the 
calves are killed too young, also that it is 
not wise to eat the flesh of pigs fed by 
Bretons; but of course we don't eat veal or 
fresh pork, so bacon is all we really miss. 
It is never sold in the regular meat-markets, 
and a glance at the charcuteries^ or pork- 
shops, was enough to satisfy us that we pre- 
ferred to do without. The woman who 
keeps the principal one at St. Briac is so 
enormously fat, so gross and so untidy, that 
she has quite the look of a pig herself, and 
is fairly uncanny. We tried to have pork 
and beans, one day, to show Francine how 
they are done, and I went to Dinard to get 
a little English salt pork, but could get no 
molasses, as they have no such thing in 
France. " Golden syrup " is their substitute 
for it, and a poor one it is. When finally 
baked the beans were good, but altogether 
a woeful extravagance, for, owing to the 

174 




The bread-cart. 




Le petit boucher. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

tariff, English things are very high-priced at 
Dinard, and beans themselves are not cheap 
here. 

I suppose that I shall miss the Swedish 
Lady and Imogene more and more each day, 
and even to-night it seems strange not to 
have them here, and I mean to be like 
" Iseult " — you know the verse : 

" She has her children too, and night and day 
Is with them; and the wide heaths where they play — 
The hollies and the clifF and the sea-shore. 
The sand, the sea-birds, and the distant sails. 
These are to her dear as to them; the tales 
With which this day the children she beguiled 
She gleaned from Breton grandames when a child 
In every hut along the sea-coast wild. 
She herself loves them still, and, when they are told. 
Can forget all to hear them, as of old." 

But the tales with which I beguile your 
sons are gleaned from old books and new, 
and are more easily forgotten than those 
learned in one's childhood. I think Mr. 
Wu will always remember his favorite story, 
for whenever we see the women working in 
the fields, a frequent sight here, he begs for 

177 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

the well-known tale about the husband who 
returned home one day soaked, and found 
his wife sitting by the fire. "As you are 
wet through," she said, "you cannot be 
wetter, so fetch me two buckets of water 
from the well." The husband went obe- 
diently and brought back the first bucket, 
and finding her in the same place, poured 
the water over her, saying, " Now you are as 
wet as I am, so you may fetch your other 
bucketful for yourself, as you cannot be 

wetter." 

August 12. 

This morning Joe and I went in to 
Dinard to do some shopping and to get 
some money. We have n't a clock or a 
watch in the house that keeps any sort of 
time except my little traveling-clock, and 
by that we had half an hour to spare. We 
were walking leisurely along on our way to 
the tram when suddenly I looked up and 
saw the engine just ready to start. We were 
still a long way off, with a hill between us to 
climb. Just then a fat man on a bicycle 
passed me, and I shrieked to him in my best 

178 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

French to please have the bountiful kind- 
ness to rush ahead and stop that tram for me. 
He understood, and pedaled his level best up 
that hill, and managed to hold the tram un- 
til we came puffing up. That is just like 
every one here : all are so very kind about 
such things. Fancy an American doing that 
for a strange woman ! One time in Dinard 
I ran ahead and stopped a tram after it had 
started, and the guard ran back and got Cock 
Sparrow, who was with the Swedish Lady, 
and carried him fully two blocks. 

I purchased for Mr. Wu a French book, 
and started him in it as soon as we got home. 
He has begged for one for some time, but I 
shall not attempt to make him learn, except 
as he wants to peg away himself, for it 's 
their bodies and not their brains I want to de- 
velop just now. My own French is pro- 
gressing slowly, but I am beginning to real- 
ize that Americans are not the only ones 
who find it difficult work to catch the sounds 
of a foreign language. Some one has said 
that French is nothing less than music, — the 
seventeen vowels are its notes, and the forty- 

179 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

eight letters and combinations of letters 
which represent them are the keys; the 
syllabic exercises are the scales, arpeggios, 
chords, and exercises, — and that we, that is, 
Americans, offer the spectacle of an entire 
nation wishing to play this music without 
familiarizing ourselves with its constituent 
elements. As far as I can see, methods of 
teaching English in France are not superior to 
the way French is taught to us, nor are the 
results any better. One thing is evident : 
the desire to learn is much more universal 
here than in America; that is, there are ap- 
parently more French persons who desire to 
speak English than there are Americans who 
desire to speak French. But I am convinced 
of this astonishing fact : that so far, at least, I 
have not met one person who can really 
speak English who has not been at some 
time or other either in England or America. 

Maurice X has lived six months in New 

York, and has had, besides, some terms at 
school in England, and his mother was born 
in Australia; yet, although he speaks very 
well, he cannot translate the ordinary French 

180 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

songs into English, and has more trouble 
reading Shakspere than I have with Rabe- 
lais. 

It seems the reason all the linen here is 
marked with my initials is that this place 

did not originally belong to the X s, but 

was built by Baroness Somebody whose first 
name was the same as mine. She died a 
year or so ago, and her husband would never 

come here again, but sold it to the X s 

just as it stood. The name of this little villa 
was originally La Tour du Petit Miroir. 

August 14. 
Last night I had quite an adventure. I 
took a long walk along over the moors, and 
not far from the club-house sat down on 
a grassy knoll to rest. I had not been there 
long when I saw a curious old peasant- 
woman approaching. She came nearer, and 
presently sat down beside me and began to 
talk. Her face was brown and lined with a 
thousand wrinkles. She was dirty, and her 
hair, coarse and streaked with gray, was strag- 
gling from under an untidy coifFe; but her 

181 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

keen black eyes were intelligent, and she 
talked easily and well, and with less of the 
Breton accent than most of the peasants 
show. She wore the usual wooden sabots, 
but had on a pair of men's heavy bicycle 
stockings and a fringed golf-cape with a 
hood. She spoke first of the difference be- 
tween the Americans and English, saying 
that she preferred the former, and that she 
knew that America was a large rich country 
near New Tori. Then golf led up to the 
subject evidently nearest her heart. She said 
her daughter had married an Englishman 
who came here every year to play golf 
He met her at the hotel, near the club- 
house. Then the mother described to me 
the wrathful amazement of her son-in-law's 
father when first he learned of his son's 
infatuation; but said that when he came 
there post-haste, and discovered her daughter 
to be pretty, modest, and accomplished, with 
a voice like an angel, and a good housewife 
besides, he made up his mind that his son 
could do no better; so the children were 
married with his paternal blessing, though 

182 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

his wife never forgave them or him. And 
now the old woman's daughter has two sons, 
three houses, four horses, a yacht, and all the 
servants she can manage ; and every year she 
sends her mother beautiful woolen stockings 
and thick English capes. When I got back 
I told Francine about her, and found that all 
the details of this little romance are true ; and 
I intend to cultivate Mme. Ross, which, 
it seems, is her name, as I think she will 
prove to be an interesting and most original 
acquaintance. She is nearly eighty, and has 
an endless number of children, grandchildren, 
and half-children, as she calls them, scattered 
all over the world. She has never taken a 
drop of medicine in her life, has the true 
Breton abhorrence of water, whether used 
without or within, and says she can walk 
from St. Briac to Dinard and back, a matter 
of twenty miles, without fatigue. 

I have heard from the girls, and they have 
thoroughly enjoyed their glimpse of Paris. I 
have offered to let nurse go to England be- 
fore you come, but, if you please, she says 
she does n't think she ought to leave me 

183 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

here alone. I had a bath in the sea to-day, 
the water sixty-four again. Joe is, I think, 
really going to learn to swim, and can float 
a little now ; and Cock Sparrow is perfectly 
fearless this year, and it is the greatest fun to 
see him shut his eyes and dive^ about an inch. 
Mr. Wu is getting on with his French les- 
sons, and Joe is rather envying him, and 
would like to have some instruction himself 
It has been so very cold for several days 
that I have worn my heaviest things, keep- 
ing on my old brown rain-coat all the time, 
both indoors and out, and I am writing in it 
now. It was most fortunate that you in- 
sisted upon my taking it. But the sun 
shines all the time, and although the natives, 
thinking of their crops, long for rain, you 
may imagine that I am well pleased. Some 
particularly cold nights I have indulged in 
the luxury of a hot-water bottle, and steamer- 
rugs are much in use. I am going to try 
to speak more with the French people I 
have met. I have no difficulty in managing 
my house, buying the provisions, and talking 
to Francine or to Mile. Mathilde, but in 

184 




They came singing down the road. 




They came singing down the road. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

ordinary conversation, when they are talking 
to each other and not to nie^ I find it hard to 
understand. 

I have just been sound asleep. I feel very 
much like the little old woman with her pet- 
ticoat, as if this really can't be I. For think 
of my sleeping until after eight in the morn- 
ing, and then wanting to nap again in the 
afternoon. Nurse is continually yawning, 
and the boys go up-stairs of their own accord 
for naps in the morning, and at night as soon 
as they can, and sometimes even ask for their 
supper earlier; it must be in the air, I sup- 
pose. 

There are a number of people at the 
chateau now, and dozens of children. Mme. 

S has been very polite and pleasant, 

and the children are quite friends. It 
seems they are riches li faire peur^ but, as far 
as I can see, they are very nice; certainly 
they are sensible and know how to really 
enjoy themselves. 

The stars are perfectly beautiful here, and 
it seems to me I never saw Venus look so 
large and brilliant as she does to-night shin- 

187 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

ing above the water. The beach is dotted 
here and there with the lights of the lan9on- 
fishers' lanterns, and they say at midnight at 
low tide the sands are covered with them. It 
must be a pretty sight, but I doubt if I ever 
sit up late enough to see it. 

August 15. 

To-day the grand event of the season took 
place ; it is one of the two great Brittany fete- 
days, the Feast of the Assumption of the 
Virgin (the other is the Pardon of the Iceland 
Fishermen, which takes place after their return, 
on the 8th of December). To-day all little 
boys who intend to become sailors or fisher- 
men — and there are few in this part of France 
who become anything else — walked in a 
procession to dedicate a little boat to the 
Virgin, whose image was enshrined in bowers 
of flowers at different places about the village. 
We met Mme. Illy, and walked around with 
her to see these shrines, and then returned 
to the one by the old windmill to watch the 
procession as it came singing down the road, 
priests, little children, men, and girls all in 
their most characteristic costumes. There is 

188 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

a great arbor, made of weeping willows, be- 
side this old windmill and in front of this 
the image was placed, and anchors, stars, and 
hearts made of the petals of flowers were laid 
in beds of white sand before it. The streets 
are hung with gay banners, and the whole 
town is adorned in its best clothes. 

The little boys that walked in the proces- 
sion wore white sailor suits with blue collars 
and white caps, and it was difficult to imagine, 
as we watched them marching so gaily in the 
sunshine, that some day each and every one 
of them " would go down to the sea in ships," 
an adventurous and dangerous means of live- 
lihood. After the fete came races, games, 
and more boisterous revelry. 

It is surprising, with all the world a-fishing 
here, how few fish we can get. I understand 
that many people are obliged to send to 
Paris for them. This scarcity of sea food is 
the greatest disappointment I have had, for 
not only is it extremely difficult to procure 
fish of any kind, but it is expensive when we 
do get it. The fishermen ship everything 
to the larger markets, as Dinard and Paris. 

189 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

Lobsters, both the smooth homard and the 
langouste, a large rough-backed variety, are 
from four to five francs apiece when small, 
and about two francs (forty cents) a pound 
when large. At home we pay twenty 
cents a pound for them, and at Magnolia we 
paid twenty-five cents, and you remember 
that wonderful summer in Maine when I 
bought them for ten cents apiece. Shrimps 
here cost a franc for a handful, and even 
mackerel cost more than at home. The boys 
catch shrimps and crabs in their nets on the 
beach, a few almost every day, seldom more 
than enough for a taste. But we can have 
cockles whenever it is low tide; then they 
bring enough home for supper, which means 
a great many, for, hot and salty, they are 
delicious, and the boys are so proud of their 
efforts in digging them that they take great 
delight in seeing who can empty the greatest 
number of shells each time. I am beginning 
to drink the hard cider, a small glass at dinner 
each day, to Francine's great delight. I did 
not like it at all at first, but have decided 
that it really must be good for one. Every 

190 




The procession at St. Briac. 




The procession at St. Briac. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

Breton servant receives a quart of this cider 
each day in addition to the regular wage. At 
first I bought ours from Marie Louise, and 
paid fifteen centimes (three cents) a quart for 
it ; but recently the supply at the lodge has 
given out, and we are obliged to send to La 
Chapelle, and there the price is twenty cen- 
times. This cider is furnished at all hotels 
and restaurants free of charge ; the mistletoe 
sign that it is for sale hangs from nearly every 
door in the village ; and as no self-respecting 
Breton ever touches water, one can imagine 
what quantities of it must be consumed every 
year. At first a number of wine merchants 
sent us their lists and begged the patronage 
of the villa ; but when they found that none 
of us drank even cider, much unfavorable 
comment was made, and I finally allowed 
Francine to explain that you would in all 
probability drink large quantities of all kinds 
of alcoholic concoctions when you came, but 
that the rest of this family preferred milk. 
One day they actually asked me, in a little 
shop at the Houle, if it was true, as they had 
been told, that I drank water, and expressed 

193 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

great concern in regard to my health when I 
confessed that report had not maligned me. 

August 16. 

This morning we went across the moor to 
gather mushrooms, which are becoming more 
and more plentiful. We found a great 
hummock of purest white sand, and the boys 
tumbled about in it for an hour or so. Then 
we went on to another one covered with 
smooth dry turf, and they started from the 
top and rolled over and over down the 
hollow and away up the other side. This 
they did over and over again until you would 
think their little brains would have been 
whipped to a froth. We brought back a 
quantity of mushrooms, and I am teaching 
them as much as I can about them. The 
Marasmius oreades — fairy-ring mushroom — 
grows all about here in greatest profusion, 
and there are literally bushels of their lea- 
thery and shriveled thin-stemmed pilei left 
in great circles to dry and die, in spite of the 
fact that the French people gather them 
daily. They fry them, stew them with fine 

194 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

herbs and garlic, dry them for winter, and 
make delicious catsup from them; and yet 
great quantities go to waste. These rings 
are said to be of very ancient date, and it is 
believed that they originated from a single 
fungus whose growth renders the soil im- 
mediately beneath it unfit for its reproduc- 
tion. The spawn, however, spreads all 
around and the next season produces a crop 
whose spawn spreads again, the exhausted 
soil behind forbidding its return in that 
direction. Thus the circle continues to 
increase and extend indefinitely. Cows, 
goats, and sheep pasture on these moors, and 
the manure and the dead fungi of other 
years enrich the sandy soil. The grass about 
is peculiarly vigorous and accentuates the 
effect of the rings. The boys don't like to 
believe all this. We prefer to imagine them 
the work of some fairy, elf, or goblin, and can 
conjure up many a pretty moonlight revel 
taking place while we sleep; so we don't 
pick this species, lest the little people be 
offended, but content ourselves with the 
fresh puffballs that spring up all over the 

195 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

level greens on the links, and with the quan- 
tities of campestris^ — common meadow 
mushroom, — that grows very large, firm, and 
pink-gilled in the fields nearest us. The 
boys commenced to learn a little about mush- 
rooms and other fungi two years ago at the 
mountains, where there were a great many 
more varieties, but only John could differen- 
tiate them then. Now even Cock Sparrow 
can tell these we find here from the occa- 
sional toadstool, which we always carefully 
destroy when we come across one, " 'Cause 
some one who don't know so much as us 
might be poisoned." 

Mr. Wu has an interesting family of 
shrimps of all sizes in his Cancale pail, and 
is always promising us enough for supper. 

You ask how I spend my evenings. In 
bed, most of them, sound asleep. I walk 
every night after supper, watch the sunset, 
come in and read a little French, and then 
write you my daily bulletin. I have no 
English books or papers of any sort. Have 
not yet been able to get a French copy of 
'-' Toilers of the Sea " Shall try again when I 

196 



H 

tr 
n 

org 
Eh 




A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

go to Dinard. It is time now for the postman 
to stagger over the fields, and I hope that it 
won't be to say that he has nothing for 
madame. His second wife has been at the 
point of death all week, and he is grum- 
bling to all the countryside that as yet he 
knows of no one to take her place. He is 
usually very boisterous by the time he 
reaches here, and I always have the gate 
locked when I see him coming, although he 
is harmless enough and has been on this 
route twenty-five years. Don't forget to tell 
me, the next time you write, how my little 
Japanese tree is getting along. There are a 
number of century-plants on the rocks near 
one of the lookouts which remind us of 
Africanus ; and although the whole basin of 
the fountain is full of little goldfish, we 
don't forget the three we left in the nursery, 
and hope you will see that they are not 
neglected. 



199 




CHAPTER XI 

August 19. 
O you don't like my instructive 
epistles and are clamoring for 
more personalities and less gener- 
alities. I suppose you mean by 
that, no more historical data and no more 
quotations of bad poetry because it happened 
to be writ hereabouts. Well, so be it. But 
just how I can be more personal I don't ex- 
actly see. I have already told you what we 
eat; when we bathe; how we all dress; 
whether the wind blows hot or cold ; what 
we think of the people we meet, and what 
they think of us ; and even the secrets of my 
beloved blue account-book. What more 
shall I do*? 

Your query about the doctor has made me 
think up a conundrum : Why does a fond 

200 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

father's fears for his family remind me of the 
prophet Jeremiah ? Because both ask, " Is 
there no balm in Gilead ? Is there no 
physician there ? " (viii. 22). I might, in 
answering your question, refer you to the 
famous chapter on snakes in Ireland, — " There 
are None," — for, to tell the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, there is no 
doctor nearer here than Dinard. But why 
should that worry you ? We did n't come 
here to be doctored, although this is an ideal 
rest cure, and I am profiting thereby daily 
and hourly. But, lest you should worry too 
much about us, I will say that should we eat 
a toadstool by chance, break an arm or leg 
on our slippery stairs, or should a bear come 
over the moors and eat a little of us up, I 

promise to seek aid in haste and the X s' 

automobile. 

I must now proceed to give you the care- 
fully studied account of Dinard that you 
desire. But what shall I say of Dinard, 
otherwise " Sister Sorrento," the " Newport 
of Europe," "Queen of Breton Beaches," 
the "Gem of the Emerald Coast"? I be- 

201 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

lieve that it is one of the most important and 
exclusive watering-places in France, and quite 
the most beautifully situated; it is directly 
across the mouth of the Ranee from St. Malo 
and St. Servan, and connected with them 
by a ferry, or bac. The effect of Dinard's 
marble villas overhanging the cliffs in many 
picturesquely terraced levels, as we see it 
from a distance, looking back from the boat, 
is simply enchanting. These villas are scat- 
tered all along the steep shore, nestled in the 
vivid green of the surrounding gardens and 
parks and of the shade-trees that connect them. 
Bright-hued awnings are stretched over bal- 
conies gay with flower-boxes brilliantly riot- 
ous with blooms; others are covered with 
vines, and some are glass-inclosed. Many 
flights of stone steps lead down to the sea, 
and flags of all nations fly from turrets and 
staffs. They tell us that roses grow here all 
the year round, and that camellias are at their 
best in December. Geraniums are sturdy 
young shrubs, with leaves like saucers. The 
climate, if half they say about it is true, must 
be ideal. They claim that it is milder in 

202 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

winter — one degree at least — than Nice, or 
even Algiers; but it must be less bracing 
than St. Briac, where the winds sweep in 
unbroken freshness over the moors from the 
sea on all sides. At Dinard the air is sup- 
posed to be balmy with the spices of the 
Antilles swept hither by the Gulf Stream. 
I inclose a photograph that gives one a 
good view of Dinard, — the " Vue Prise de 
la Malouine," — which is taken from a little 
stone lookout facing the public beach, so 
that we can look down the whole length 
of the sands, all glittering with mica like 
sheets of marvelous moire silk shining in the 
sun. The name of this beach is " La Greve 
de I'Ecluse," and it has been called "L'Or de 
Chat." It is edged by rows of gaily striped 
tents and bath-chairs, and crowded with well- 
dressed, merry idlers, and at certain times of 
the day is a picture most typical of the light- 
hearted, beauty-loving, and pleasure-seeking 
French people. There are two casinos, many 
clubs, no end of fine hotels to furnish luxu- 
rious accommodations and amusements, and 
the villas on the hillsides are let at fabulous 

203 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

prices to titled and renowned personages, 
whose daily pastimes are duly and carefully 
chronicled in many columns of the New York 
"Herald," Paris edition. 

The Malouine is the most fashionable resi- 
dence part of the town, and was originally 
the ancient property of the Due d'AudifFret- 
Pasquier. It has been transformed by the 
efforts of a certain M. Poussineau, backed by 
some rich person said to be an American, 
into a magnificent park, dotted with superb 
villas set upon a series of fine terraces. You 
can readily see that this is no place for per- 
sons seeking quiet, restful, inexpensive play- 
grounds for their children, and we are very 
thankful that we did not attempt to stay there 
even for a short time ; as it is, we go in occa- 
sionally to shop, or to get some money at 
Jean le Cocq's. Most of the people we see 
are English or French, for as yet the propor- 
tion even of expatriated Americans is small. 
There is one man here, with a hyphenated 
name, who crossed with us. I don't think 
I spoke of him before, but he is one of the 
kind who change their clothes many times a 

204 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

day, and who wish to be familiar on very 
short acquaintance. He said, when we met 
him in the bank here: "This place is nice 
enough, I suppose, but my wife and daugh- 
ters cannot endure it, the people are so un- 
friendly — and we are staying at the Grand, 
toor 

August 21. 

I had a very nice time yesterday at the 
Villa Medicis in Dinard, and thoroughly 
enjoyed my visit. I had not looked forward 
to it with much pleasure, for most of my 
compatriots over here have appeared to be 
most uninteresting; but, after meeting the 

C s, I can understand the remark of the 

Englishwoman who said, " Why is it all 
the Americans you see are so nawsty, and all 
the ones you know are so nice?" But, in 

fact, only Mme. C is an American, after 

all, for her husband is an Irishman with a 
most delightful brogue. They live in a great 
square villa, with cool, dark rooms, and an 
enormous balcony or stone terrace built di- 
rectly over the sea. We had a delicious tea, 
and it seemed good to speak to some one 

205 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

without having to think about vocabulary, 
grammar, or accent. They have six children, 
who speak French and ItaUan equally well, 
and who have beautiful manners, as have all 
the children here, without exception. They 
are being taught English, which they speak 
now very brokenly. Their mother told me 
that they always quarrel in Italian, and use 
French when they are well behaved. It seems 
she met her husband when she was traveling 
over here as a girl with her mother, and at 
Brussels their acquaintance ripened into some- 
thing warmer by a chance meeting in the 
custom-house. She saw him standing in de- 
spair while the official overhauled hisbaggage, 
left her own, and went over and stood beside 
him. At once the man closed the trunks and 
marked them without further trouble. " Good 
heavens ! what did you do •? " inquired Mr. 
C . " Smiled at him,'' replied his fair de- 
liverer. And straightway Mr. C decided 

to keep that smile with him for the rest of his 
travels ; and apparently she has been using it 
successfully ever sincec 

We caught the last car back to St. Briac, 

206 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

but it was so crowded that I had to sit on 
the step of the back platform. This was n't 
uncomfortable, however, and I always enjoy 
the ride. We go through St. Enogat and 
St. Lunaire, and it takes just an hour to reach 
the terminus, which is about half-way between 
the golf club-house and the Houle, the village 
proper of St. Briac. St. Enogat is a suburb 
so closely connected by old farm-houses, 
shops, and cafes with Dinard as to seem 
almost a part of the town ; but the villas there 
are quite unpretentious, and the rents are very 
low. I have only seen it from the tram, and 
do not know whether there is a beach. 

The French children here, without excep- 
tion, wear socks. I have not seen stockings 
even on boys of fourteen. And all their 
trousers are Russian — that is, loose and baggy 
at the knees. We had a bath this morning, 
but the water was cold and rather dirty, so 
we hurried out. 

This afternoon the boys went with me over 
the golf links. We watched a number of 
Englishmen make some poor plays, and had 
a very enjoyable time. I have just been 

209 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

taking the thorns out of Mr. Wu's feet, as 
he chose to go without shoes, and the moors 
are covered with tiny rose-bushes full of 
prickles. Earlier in the season these little 
dwarf bushes are covered with white blos- 
soms, which at a distance look exactly like 
golf balls, and are a great pest. It seems 
strange to see the peasants start out to work 
in the fields after supper. A little kid is 
tethered every day near us with an old black- 
and-white goat, and it is the prettiest and 
most playful creature imaginable, and Sera- 
polette follows us about like a big dog when 
we pass her in the fields, and always greets 
us anywhere with her tuneful hinge-squeak. 
Just across from us is the island of Agot, 
a purple line against the sky, broken by a 
single tower and the lighthouse. The other 
night Cock Sparrow woke up and saw this 
light shining across the water. He sat up 
and straightway recited, " Twinkle, twinkle, 
little star," through to the last word, and then 
went sound asleep again. It is raining now, 
but I think, in spite of it, I shall walk down 
to La Chapelle to mail this letter this evening 

210 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

after supper. There is a boat of the American 

line which touches at Cherbourg the 26th, 

but I am hoping to get this to you by a faster 

one from some other port, Wednesday at 

latest. It is supposed to be necessary to allow 

ten days for a letter from America to reach 

Paris, which means twelve by the time it 

reaches me here. 

August 23. 

To-day at low tide we walked across to 

an island near by and had a picnic. 'T was 

great fun and gave us an entirely new view. 

There arrived last night, in the courtyard, 

ten little baby rabbits and eleven chickens, 

which will not be exhibited until to-morrow. 

John has learned to know the skylarks, and 

is much interested in their sudden flights and 

songs. In your letter that came yesterday 

you asked whether I like the X s. Now 

why must you know of the fly in our 

honey*? How could you ask us to find 

fault with our Paradise *? But, if you must 

know, I don't find Mme. X- at all 

congenial. In the first place, she seems to 

have no appreciation of the beautiful place 

211 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

whereof, by some strange whim of fortune, 
she is mistress. She never bathes in the sea, 
never goes near the beach, and never walks ; 
in fact, she does n't care for any of the things 
that I most enjoy. And, what is worse, she 
berates her descendants and her domestics 
from morn till night; consequently she has 
well-trained children and servants, but is not 
much beloved either by them or by her 

neighbors. M. X is the handsomest 

Frenchman, or rather the only handsome 
Frenchman, I have ever seen. He is large, 
has a gray beard and very kindly eyes, 
speaks very little English, and is always to 
be seen trying gently and quietly to get 
away from his wife's eye and tongue ; but he 
never quite succeeds. 

Maurice and Cecil are nice children and 
they are very good to our boys. The older 
sister, a shy, quiet girl of twenty-two or -three, 
who is devoted to Cock Sparrow, leads ap- 
parently the grayest and dullest of lives, and 
I am unkind enough to suspect that madame 
suppresses any attempted gaiety on her part, 
as she evidently wishes to be the life of the 

212 




Ange. 




Marie Louise Jean, the gardener's wife. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

house herself. Yesterday I played billiards 
with Maurice and a young man from Paris. 
I played very well, and surprised myself, for 
I have not had a cue in my hand for many a 
long day. This whole place, Les Mouettes, 
is perfectly entrancing to me — everything 
is so as I like it; and imagine the present 
owners paying only fourteen thousand dollars 
for it all, donkey, cart, chickens, rabbits, 
dogs, and all the lovely old furniture, besides 
the farm-land outside the walls; just wait 
until you see it, and you can judge better 
how hon marche that really is. 

The other morning a man came with some 
most exquisite Chinese embroideries, but I 
did not purchase anything; I am saving all 
my spare francs to squander in Paris. The 
corn-flowers are just in their prime now, but 
there are not quite so many poppies, though 
the fields are still gay with them, and I only 
hope they will last until you get here. The 
boys are picking up French phrases daily. 
They learn most of these from Ange and 
Marie Louise — the gardener and his wife ; 
Ange is a nice old man and has been here 

215 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

on this estate over twenty years. He never 
receives any instructions about his work, but 
goes quietly keeping the place in perfect 
order. Marie Louise works with him just 
like a man. The boys go out and help 
them dig potatoes and pick beans, and are 
very proud of their wooden sabots because 
they are the same as those Ange wears. 

August 23. 
Since I have been here I have thought so 
much of Millet and his sad, hard life; I 
seem to know him so well now — although 
when we went through Cherbourg I forgot 
to think of him at all or that his birthplace 
was near by ; or at least in the Manche. This 
whole country seems to speak of him, and I 
can understand his brave spirit and his long 
struggle as I never did before. When I go 
out across the fields to sit in the twilight, I 
think of him saying, " Let us go and see the 
sunset; that will comfort me again"; and 
his pictures of peasants are constantly before 
me, those he penned as well as those he 
painted. 

216 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

The houses about here are much like the 
one Millet was born in — large and low, of 
unhewn gray stone roughly cemented together, 
capped by high-pitched thatched roofs, and 
the front hidden by the green leaves of old 
gnarled vines. Even some of the garden 
walls have about two feet of thatch along the 
top. Millet's own house at Barbizon had 
but three rooms, one of which had been used 
as a barn and was without a floor; this he 
made into his atelier. In all the French vil- 
lages on the borders of Fontainebleau Forest 
the whitewashed stone and plaster exteriors 
are dulled by time to soft yellowish grays, 
and the red-tiled roofs have become rusty 
bronze, with a glint of bright green moss here 
and there in the crevices. 

Millet's life saddens one, and yet it should 
give us courage to go on with our own. I 
am afraid I should not be brave enough to 
stick to my convictions if I had all the little 
mouths to feed that he had. I should start 
"pot-boiling," I know. 

When I get too full of sympathy, I turn 
to the trees, which remind me of Corot. Of 

217 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

course I don't care so much for him or his 
pictures, good and kind and great though he 
was, for it seems to me it is easy to give, 
give, give when one has plenty and no respon- 
sibihties. I 'd rather be a peasant than a 
milHner's son ; and if I wore a blue blouse, I 
should n't add a starched collar to it. 

Millet was a peasant himself, and he under- 
stood and sympathized with them as no one 
else has ever done — ^just the hopeless routine 
of their lives, the poor backs always bent, 
bearing burdens or tilling the defiant soil. 
Zola made them brutal. Millet knew they 
were only tired and ignorant. But the strange 
part of it is that to me the peasants here all 
seem happy enough. And while I can under- 
stand how the artist soul rebelled against all 
injustice and narrow bondage, I think his 
own sorrows perhaps made theirs seem to him 
greater than they really are. 

The only thing I dislike about Millet is 
that he was married twice ; and I lay it up 
against Corot that he was n't married at all. 

Blue was Millet's favorite color, and he had 
nine children ! 

218 



\ 







Mere Gobier Cutting the Wheat (after Millet). 




The Village Windmill (after CorotJ. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

The boys have built a wonderful castle on 
the beach, and scarcely want to leave it long 
enough to come up to eat their meals. This 
structure has real rooms, and nurse has given 
them bits of linen for sheets, and stones form 
the furniture. There are stables and court- 
yards and all sorts of outbuildings. But I 
fear me, even if Flambeau, the big Newfound- 
land dog who is a part of our place, leaves it 
standing, the tide will wipe it out before 
another day. 



221 



CHAPTER XII 




August 25. 
0-DAY I have two items of inter- 
est wherewith to vary the monot- 
ony of my daily chronicle. Some 
time ago a young woman stopped 
me on my way to the tram, and said that she 
was a nurse to the children of the Comtesse 

du D , who was staying at the Chateau 

de Nicey with her parents, and that madame 
la comtesse had observed my beautiful chil- 
dren, and would like to have them know her 
little girl and boy. I had seen these children, 
and felt quite willing to have them meet the 
boys, but decided that madame la comtesse 
herself would have to arrange where and how 
the meeting should take place ; so I simply 
replied to the nurse that madame was very 
kind, and went on. To-day a dear little 

222 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

donkey-cart came up the hill with the nurse 
and these two children, who had come to 
call. The little girl is a beautiful child, and 
the boy is rather handsome ; he is just nine 
days older than Joe, but not so tall. Their 
nurse is English, and I am glad on nurse's 
account to have her come here. She (the 
nurse) has been living in France with these 
children for seven years, ever since Made- 
leine's birth, yet neither of them can speak a 
word of English, although Madeleine can 
read and write a little, and both understand 
very well all that is said to them. The other 
event of the day took place this evening, after 
supper, and was quite amusing. Just at dusk 
I went out, and, after walking some distance, 
sat down on the edge of a crossing of sandy 
pathways. Presently a couple came walking 
slowly along, and sat down beside me. Both 
were elderly, stout, gray-haired, and English. 
The lady carried a parasol, as do all women 
here, even the peasants and fisherwomen, 
and held it so as to shield her face — in fact, 
in a way that hid them both as they talked. 
I did n't pay much attention to them, for I 

2 23 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

was engrossed in my own thoughts, and was 
watching beautiful shades creeping over land 
and sea ; so, although they were very close to 
me, I did n't hear what they said, or, in fact, 
notice them after my first glance. All of a 
sudden, apparently for the first time, they 
looked up and saw me, and sprang to their 
feet, blushing like boy and girl, and were 
both alike covered with confusion. What 
had taken place or had been said beneath 
that white parasol, I shall never know ; but 
they evidently thought I did. I felt the 
pathos of such a belated courtship, and got 
up quickly and left them to it. I came home 
by the path, narrow and well beaten, which 
leads from the moors between tall rows of 
yellow wheat and poppies, through the vege- 
table-garden, to our own road. On my way 
I passed the " smuggler's house," a small 
rough stone structure, with walls three or four 
feet thick and no windows. The doors, or 
rather openings, — for there are no doors to 
the two narrow compartments, — are built 
with a curious slant, so that one has to enter 
diagonally. This place simply fascinates the 

224 






The "smuggler's house. 




Madeleine in the little court at La Petite Mouette. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

boys, and their little heads fairly whirl with 
visions of pirates hiding there from the vigi- 
lance of the coast-guard who daily walks over 
to it. This guard is a picturesque figure, 
and is always a part of our landscape, as he 
is to be seen at any time of the day outlined 
somewhere against the sky, in his red-and- 
blue uniform, a blanket over his arm, and a 
knapsack on his back. Whatever the origi- 
nal use of the smuggler's house may have 
been, it now serves no more doubtful one than 
to shelter the kelp or seaweed which Ange 
gathers for manure and stores there until spring. 
Tramping over these moors as I do a dozen 
times a day or more, I rarely fail to discover 
some new beauty, a hidden path or hollow, a 
strange flower, or a comfortable place to sit 
and rest, and it is all edged by the ever- 
changing color of my ever-beloved sea. I often 
think of Mr. Wu's first burst of poetry when 
he said, — was it two or three years ago? — 

" Did the man who climbed up in the apple-tree 
To paint the sky so blue. 
Lean over when he was done with that. 
And paint the ocean, too ? ** 

227 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

August 27. 

To-day I went again to Cancale with some 
artists from Paris, very pleasant people, who 
are spending the summer here. 

We had luncheon under the awning in 
front of the hotel on the quay at the Houle, 
and a very good one it proved to be. It 
seems impossible that we could each eat a 
dozen of the enormous greenish Cancale 
oysters (about three or four times the size 
of our Bluepoints and very salt), and then 
enjoy lobster and many other things besides; 
but we accomplished this easily. 

A good-sized schooner was being built in 
the yard near the hotel. All the little flat- 
bottomed boats used by the cod-fishers are 
made here, and also most of their nets. Six- 
teen hundred of these fishermen leave St. Malo 
each year on two great steamers bound for 
St. Piere Miquelon and Terre-Neuve. 

*' lis sont partis de Saint Malo, 

lis sont partis de Saint Malo, 
Tous ben portants, vaillants et beaux. 

In' troun' derin tra loulaire ! 

In' troun' derin tra loula ! ' ' 

228 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

Before starting, they march, bareheaded, 
barefooted, and with bare crossed arms, 
clothed in white, and led by their priests, to 
the shrine of the famous Madonna at St. 
Jouan-des-Guerets, four miles out from St. 
Servan. Here they make their vows in peril 
of shipwreck, and, on their return in safety, 
fulfil them and receive an address in the 
paroisse. These world-famed mariners are 
usually drunk when they embark, singing 
the song of the Paimpolaise, which has been 
translated into half a dozen tongues, and is 
beloved by sailors on every sea : 

*' Quand leurs bateaux quittent nos rives, 
Le cure leur dit : * Mes bons fieux, 
Priez souvent Monsieur St. Yves, 
Qui nous voit de creux toujours bleu.' " 

August 28. 
Yesterday we went for a picnic to the 
Garde-Guerin, the highest point of land in 
this part of the country, which is about half- 
way between St. Lunaire and St. Briac, and 
is a favorite short excursion for all visitors 
and tourists. We carried our luncheon in a 

229 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

big fruit-basket, and took another one for 
blackberries, which are just beginning to 
ripen. These grow ripe and drop from the 
hedges for want of picking. None of the 
peasants eat them, and this is said to be 
because of a superstition that the crown of 
thorns was made of bramble-briers. Even the 
little children let them alone, although they 
are unusually large and delectable, and the 
country all about is edged with their graceful 
bushes. They ripen much later than with 
us. We enjoyed the walk, and found the 
ascent easy, and at the top a magnificent 
view in all directions well repaid us for the 
effort. Bare, rocky, the hilltop is crowned by 
the picturesque ruins of an old guard- or tax- 
house, which still serves the coast-guard as a 
shelter. After our luncheon, we came down 
the St. Lunaire side and crossed the beach at 
Longchamps, which is a wonderful expanse 
of hard white sand. St. Lunaire is quite a 
resort, and there is a distinct English colony 
there. We imagine that at the Hotel de 
Paris their clientele is wholly British, for they 
have tennis-courts and the British flag, and 

230 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

a little sign announces: "Afternoon tea served 
here." We walked in all fully five miles, 
and Cock Sparrow trudged along like a little 
man, and never once complained of being 
tired. We took the tram back, and on our 
way home up the hill we sat down under a 
fig-tree laden with green fruit, and ate some 
ripe figs I had purchased at the tea-shop at 
St. Lunaire. This was the children's first 
taste of the fresh fig, and I don't think they 
cared especially for them. Many of the 
English come to St. Lunaire and to the Hotel 
Panorama in order to use the golf links of the 
Dinard Club here at St. Briac. And you 
must be sure and bring your clubs, for you 
will enjoy playing on these natural links, 
covered with heather, dwarf roses, and sea- 
holly. They stretch along the edge of the 
sea, up and down, a tee here right on the 
cliffs, a green there between a patch of the 
deep-purple clover and a field of the golden 
wheat. Almost every day, from our tower 
windows, we can count from sixty to a hun- 
dred red-coated, white-trousered golfers with 
their caddies ; but the expanse of nearly two 

231 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

miles never seems crowded, even on days 
when special contests are watched by a gallery 
of gay spectators from Dinard. The club- 
house is an unpretentious building, with 
stables, quite near the tramway, very comfort- 
able and popular. The subscriptions for men 
are : one week, ten francs ; one month, twenty 
francs; three months, thirty francs; and fifty 
francs for the whole year; and women are 
charged just half as much. The members are 
mostly English, and there are comparatively 
few women who play ; the caddies are, most 
of them, girls. A number of red-cheeked, 
bright-eyed old Englishmen, in their knicker- 
bockers, that somehow go oddly with their 
white hair, play with great enthusiasm, and 
generally a good game. I was especially 
interested, one day, in watching two who 
played over the whole course with one club, 
— a mashie, — and made the holes often in 
four or five ; and this, when one can never 
see the green from the tee, is fair playing. 
Traces of a recent paper-chase are still to be 
seen over all the footpaths and byways, and 
yesterday, on our way to St. Lunaire, the 

232 




A picnic on the moors. 



^■--m 







La Garde-Guerin. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

children had quite a run themselves following 
the cut paper. There are a number of artists 
who come here every year to paint these 

moors, among them the Q s, who are 

the ones with whom I went to Cancale the 

other day. Mr. Q has been at Barbizon, 

and makes a specialty of outdoor effects, and 
madame illustrates books.. They have asked 
me over for tea, and I am going some day 
to see his pictures, for if they are especially 
characteristic of the country about here, I 
should like to have one to take home with 
me. Mr. Wu's present ambition is to "do 
artisting" himself, and he goes out frequently 
to " sketch " in the fields just outside our 
door. His favorite subject is the Garde- 
Guerin, with all sorts of wonderful cloud 
effects. The other day he was propped up 
against a wheat-stack, drawing earnestly, but 
without looking at the scene before him. 

August 30. 

The Comtesse de D has been to see 

me, and she is a beautiful woman and speaks 
English very well. She said that she had 

235 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

been wanting to know me all summer, but 
understood that I did not wish to be dis- 
turbed by visitors, and so had not come 
sooner. There is probably more French 
politeness than truth in this; but I am glad 
she came, anyway, and Francine is radiant 
over it, as she says madame never was so 
gracious before. I find that the gossip in 
regard to the inmates of the Chateau de 
Nicey was quite as unfounded as most talk 
of the same kind is in America. The Com- 

tesse B V was in the great Paris 

bazaar fire, and is obliged to wear a wig; 
but, so far from being confined to a chair 
from nervous prostration, as reported, she is 
a most energetic and very young-looking 
woman, whom I have often seen walking 
briskly about the country, and Mme. Illy tells 
me she rides to hounds when at her daugh- 
ter's hunting-lodge, an exercise in which few 
elderly Frenchwomen indulge. The son-in- 
law, the Comte de D , according to Fran- 
cine, owns enough horses to make him a 
scion of the oldest nobility, if that be a test 
of ancient lineage. He was educated in Eng- 

236 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

land, and both he and madame are exceed- 
ingly anxious to have their children, Made- 
leine and Jacques, brought up on English 
principles; they even buy their clothes in 
London. Madame is the most charming 
Frenchwoman I have ever met. She is sim- 
ple in manner, and, in fact, she is quite what 
I had imagined a great lady really would be 
if you could meet her outside of a book. She 
seems anxious to have our children play 
together, and I have promised to let the boys 
go to the chateau some day soon. 

The days are growing shorter, and we 
have the lamps lighted in the evening. I 
have discovered that the price of kerosene is 
fearfully high — two francs and a half for a 
hidon or gallon ; so we pay about fifty cents 
here where we pay eleven or twelve at home. 
Most of the native cooking is done over 
charcoal on tiny braziers ; but we use coal, 
which we buy in small sacks. We do not 
have the kindling they use in Paris, the kind 
they call buches^ but instead are obliged to 
purchase little bunches of brush or fagots 
tied with string. I had an example of the 

237 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

extent to which pourboires are expected, the 
other day, when I paid my last coal bill. 
Francine said, rather reproachfully, "Madame 
has not given the man anything." " Oh, yes, 
I have," I said ; " I have paid him every 
time, and it is the dealer himself who brings 
it." " Oh, but, madame, one always pays 
him each time for coming, and he has been 
here many times." I find, by balancing my 
little set of colored books every Saturday 
night, that our expenses seldom vary. I think 
I have been here long enough to prove that 
the cost of our living averages exactly one 
third what it did last year on the North Shore. 
This is for food ; the difference in the rent 
and wages, of course, is still greater, for Fran- 
cine's modest stipend of ten dollars a month, 
which includes washing and ironing, is all I 
pay for service, as she carries away the ashes 
and garbage herself, chops the bits of wood 
from the bunches of kindling, and is equal 
to any and every emergency. Not far from 
our villa on the moors is the public washery, 
a shallow, oblong cement basin, around which 
the women kneel, and there all the clothes 

238 




Two old peasants, are cutting the wheat. 





Mr. Wu " artisting " (^ the wheat-rield j . 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

are slapped and beaten on a board with flat 
wooden paddles. They use quantities of 
soap; and as there is a dearth of water at 
times, I can scarcely contemplate having 
lingerie of mine freshened in this way with 
any degree of complacency, although nothing 
could be more immaculate than the coiffes, 
which, I suppose, are washed in this same 
manner. Francine has only one small tub, 
but she manages to make our clothes sweet 
and white, and they are dried on the grass. 
Most of the large washings, such as the towels 
and the sheets from the hotels, are rubbed 
and rinsed in salt water, and dried on the 
sands. Economy is the rule, not the excep- 
tion, in Brittany ; and if the old saying that 
a French family can live on what is wasted 
in an American kitchen be exaggerated, there 
is at least some truth in it, for much that an 
American housewife would consider pinching 
and stingy is done here as a matter of course 
by every one. Take, for instance, the one 
item of soup. Francine is never at a loss for 
material for the many delicious kinds she 
makes, yet we never purchase anything espe- 

241 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

cially for them. The water in which any 
vegetable, meat, or fish is cooked is saved; 
and I have learned from her how to make 
many new creams and purees. Turnips and 
tapioca make a specially good combination, 
and all sorts of little pates and different small 
shapes of paste like vermicelli are made espe- 
cially for the broth from the famous potaufeu^ 
which is neither the plain boiled beef of the 
English, tasteless and entirely void of nourish- 
ment, nor the braized beef we eat at home, 
but is better and cheaper than either. Any 
cut will do, but a piece of the round is pre- 
ferred. We have it about once a week, 
generally on Wednesday, for it is almost 
impossible to get meat of any kind either on 
Thursday or Friday, as Thursday is "buying, 
not selling day," and on Friday one is not 
supposed to want meat. After I get the meat, 
we put it into a great earthen pot, cover it 
with water, bring it to a boil, season it with 
salt and pepper, let it boil very slowly for 
three hours. Then all sorts of vegetables are 
added. The onions are first sliced and browned 
in a little butter. The meat and vegetables 

242 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

are then boiled slowly together, and the broth 
is used for soup. Now don't accuse me of 
trying to teach you to cook, just because I 
have told you this much about our household 
economics. I just simply want to give you 
some idea of the way we live here, for it 
won't be long before you will have to try it 
yourself, and I don't want you to be disap- 
pointed in anything. This is the last letter 
that I shall write you to America, for by the 
time another could reach there you will have 
sailed. 



243 




CHAPTER XIII 

September 4. 
T seems good to have you on this 
side of the water, even though as 
yet you are no nearer than Lon- 
don. I have called at the chateau 
since I last wrote you, and it is a place to 
make grown-ups believe they have suddenly 
been transported into a medieval romance; 
but your sturdy young Americans, who are 
invited there almost daily, prefer to play on 
their own beach, and accept the great halls 
of armor, the square towers filled with boats, 
the moat and drawbridge, and the enchanting 
caves and grottos and summer-houses on the 
beautiful wooded island quite as a matter of 
course. When they have been there, they 
have always refused the enticing tea served 
each afternoon, " because our mother does n*t 

244 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

let us eat things between meals," and thereby 
have earned the approval of madame the 

Comtesse B V , and much pity from 

her grandchildren. Madeleine and Jacques 
have been here often, and at low tide our 
beach runs into theirs, so they can go that 
way over the sands, or else up over the hill 
by Ker Briac, and across the fields by the 
paddock. We have had quite a scare. Mau- 
rice X has told us that they have re- 
ceived notice to prepare for several regiments 
of cavalry from Dinard and Rennes, which 
are to camp in these fields, and that the 
officers would be quartered at Les Mouettes, 
Les Essartes, and at La Petite Mouette, un- 
less my not being a native should exempt me 
from such duty. To-day I took a walk with 

Mme. de D -. She was a picture in a 

white dress, long three-caped red coat, and a 
red-and-white Napoleon three-cornered hat. 
Her clothes are all very dainty and chic. She 
is a type of woman I have never known, but 
have always thought I should like to meet. 
But she can't comprehend the way we Amer- 
ican women do things. Our point of view 

245 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

is not hers. To-day she told me she thought 
it absurd for me to go back this autumn, and 
said if I would come to Paris she would try 
to make it pleasant for me. I told her I 
knew you would want me to go home with 
you, and that I preferred to do so. "Oh," 
she said, "just pretend you are sick, and then 
he will have to let you stay." I tried to 
explain to her that, if I wanted to, I could 
stay not only one winter but several, and that 
American wives do not consider it necessary 
to deceive their husbands in order to do as 
they please. Of course she did n't believe 
me. 

To-morrow is our anniversary, and I 
shall celebrate it by going to St. Malo to see 
nurse safely started on her way to England. 
I have persuaded her to go, although she 
does n't wish to leave me before you come ; 
but I feel that the exact date of your arrival 
is too uncertain to run the risk of cutting 
short her visit. I shall take all the boys with 
me, as I could not leave them alone with 
Francine, and they are anticipating great 

pleasure. Mme. de D offered to send 

246 






The pastry-boy. 




The butcher-boy in his robes, taken in the small court at La Petite Mouette. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

her nurse over to help me with them while 
nurse is away. Of course I did n't accept, 
but appreciated her thoughtfulness. 

The wheat is being cut in front of the villa 
by two old peasants, both over eighty. They 
use a short hand-scythe. One — a woman — 
wears a brilliant red flannel petticoat, which 
with her white coifFe makes a pleasing dash 
of color against the yellow grain. 

September 8. 
Dear Aunt Phena : 

Your nephew wishes me to write you of 
his safe arrival here, and how much he en- 
joyed his visit with you. He came by the 
most circuitous route, missed all the proper 
connections right and left, was obliged to 
spend a day at Southampton, and went over 
to the Isle of Wight while waiting; and the 
night he finally did arrive he telegraphed me 
that he could not possibly get here until the 
next day, and then he drove up from Dinard 
and found us all in bed, sound asleep. It 
was moonlight, and the drive through appa- 
rently trackless fields made him think that 

249 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

he had lost his way several times before he 
saw our tower in the distance and recognized 
it from my descriptions. He is too busy now, 
going about the country, trying to see as 
much of our environment as possible before 
we leave for Paris, to write himself. Mr. Wu 
generally goes with him, and sometimes we 
all go; but I am saving my strength for 
Mont St. Michel, where we mean to cele- 
brate my birthday next week. Yesterday we 
celebrated his, and had a very grand cake 
made at the shop at the village. It was like 
a great flat cart-wheel, with St. Briac in round 
letters at the hub — indigestible, of course, 
but most palatable, and really only a fancy 
form of a regular spice-cake, recipe for which 
is, in our materials : One pint of molasses, 
one pint of honey ; boil for fifteen minutes 
and skim. Add to this one cup of butter, 
and let it get partly cool. Then add a tea- 
spoonful each of cinnamon, anise, and cori- 
ander, and the grated rind of a lemon. Mix 
with flour enough to make a smooth dough, 
knead it into a ball, and let it stand a day 
before using. Chop a pint of mixed candied 

250 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

fruits and add to the paste. Roll it about 
an inch thick, make into little balls, set them 
a little apart on a baking-sheet, and bake 
them a light brown in a quick oven. Rolled 
thin and cut in shapes, this makes good 
Christmas cookies, and keeps a long time. 
All cakes and sweets are bought at the 
patisseries here, and great varieties of all sorts 
of fancy confections, made of cream, fruit, 
and pastry, are fresh daily. One unhappy 
day at St. Lunaire, a little place near here, I 
ventured to pay a goodly sum for an " Eng- 
lish plum-cake," which proved to be such an 
underdone, soggy imitation of the real thing 
that I much regretted my experiment. The 
white-capped boy who comes from the shop 
at St. Briac brings us occasionally some excel- 
lent little plain sponge-cakes, and also ripe 
figs, which are very plentiful just now and 
cost only eight cents a dozen. All groceries 
are very dear here, especially sugar (casserole 
or common brown is eleven cents a pound), 
candles, matches, spices, and the like. Cereals 
are absolutely unknown, and a great opening 
is surely awaiting some one who can intro- 

251 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

duce them and cause the French people to 
add some of our thousand and one breakfast 
foods to their coffee and rolls. 

To-day our butcher-boy came up and asked 
me to take his picture in the robes he wears 
as choir-boy at the church. I stood him in 
the sun out in our little courtyard, and took 
some snap shots with my kodak, and he went 
off very much pleased. 

I wish you could see the little terraced 
garden where I have sat and sewed all this 
happy summer, and that I could give you 
some tea there this afternoon. Every one 
drinks tea here, not because they like it, but 
because the English do; so you ought to be 

flattered. The X s, who own this place, 

have a number of great wicker chairs and 
tables out under some pine-trees, and drink 
tea there every day. The artichokes, of which 
there are a great number of bushes growing 
under some dwarf pear-trees on the other side 
of the path leading from the paddock to the 
beach, have all gone to seed ; their tops have 
changed color, and are now a most brilliant 
blue. 

252 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

I regret very much that I shall have to 
take the children back to America without 
letting you have a glimpse of them ; but I 
did not care to cross the Channel with them 
unless it was absolutely necessary. We go 
in a week or two to Paris, where we shall 
stay in a quiet hotel near the Tuileries, that 
the children can play and sail their boats in 
the gardens ; and we shall sail for home from 
Cherbourg in about a month. 



13 

253 




CHAPTER XIV 

Des Moines, Iowa. 
Dear Cherrie Reed: 

|OU see we are once more at home, 
safe and sound — no worse for our 
many adventures; and, indeed, 
much better, stronger, wiser, saner, 
and happier for the complete change and 
rest. 

I had hoped to write you from Mont St. 
Michel, where we all went to spend my 
birthday just before we left Brittany; but 
our stay there was too short, and we had our 
hands full during all of it. We were there 
just at the time of all times, full moon 
and the highest tide, and it was all quite as 
wonderful as we had always imagined it 
must be. Of course your nephews did not 
appreciate much of its grandeur or beauty ; 

254 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

but they were very happy to be with us, and 
at some later date, when they return to it, 
will remember with pleasure their first visit. 

The drive over from Pontorson to the 
mont was all too short, with that marvel of 
architecture before our eyes, rising from the 
grim rock, guarded by grimmer sands and sea. 
It would have been quicker and, perhaps, bet- 
ter — certainly cheaper — to have gone by 
tram; but then, we would have missed the lanes 
fringed with tamarisks, and the huge banks 
and drifts of snow-white sand. As it was, our 
carryall resembled nothing so much as the 
old woman's shoe on wheels. 

You can see us, can't you, three on a 
seat? — and will not be surprised when you 
learn that en route Joe's sandal went over 
the causeway to swell the long list of 
animate and inanimate objects that have 
been swallowed up by the shiftings of these 
quicksands. There was no hope of rescuing 
it; and so, in spite of loud lamentations, it 
now lies in those treacherous depths, with 
the bones of barons, knights, men-at-arms, 
monks, fugitives, pursuers, wayfarers, and 

255 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 



fishermen who have perished there. We 
shuddered to see it sink slowly through the 
shiny gray fluid, that trembled like quick- 



Diner 

Dejeuner 

..Cafe au lait 
.Cafe noir...| 
.;Vin .#% \:% 

..cm 



••#•■ 









\ V\ 



^s\ 




tCons OTnmatibns . 







■■'■■',.j •/■,',,.,,. 



LHOTU POULARD AINE el ses dcpendances, la MAISON ROUGE.'la MAISON 
BLANCHE el la MAISON VERTE sonl iadiquees surcelle qravure par de5_lrails rouges 

silver, silent and rapacious still; but having 
adorned the tale with its moral, we took off 
its mate, and the young gentleman trod the 

256 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

earth unshod for the rest of the trip, and we 
followed his example for a brief part of it; 
but I will come to that later. 

Although there were so many of us, we 
succeeded in getting established for the night 
at the genuine Poulard Aine's, in tiny cells 
'way up on the terrace. Then we started 
out to explore, and passed on our climb the 
public school, which interested the boys and 
all of us because it was so very small — really 
just a bandbox; it cannot possibly hold more 
than three or four pupils at a time, and then 
the teacher would have to stand outside. 

We were obliged to have a guide through 
the abbey, but it is not true that one cannot 
draw an unaccompanied breath while on the 
mont. Parties are restricted to a certain 
number, but this is but a needful precaution, 
considering the age of the structure and the 
crumbling condition of some of its walls. 
Since August of this year, when Mme. Pou- 
lard Aine served luncheon to fourteen hun- 
dred tourists in a single day, still greater care 
has been taken, and fears have been enter- 
tained lest certain delicate portions of the old 

257 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

part be destroyed. And after the fall of the 
Campanile at Venice the wonderful " lace 
stairway " was closed, so we could only look 
up at its lovely traceries from the platform 
below. I confess I breathed a sigh of relief at 
this, for I had had visions of three lively young- 
sters balancing themselves thereon and tum- 
bling against its fragile balustrade. Workmen 
were busy in several places, and, of course, 
eventually all will be restored and the entire 
abbey practically rebuilt; but it is slow work, 
and is being carefully done. So far as I 
could see, the cloister is by no means " the 
very model of desecration " that one modern 
writer has called it. 

Mr. Wu admired its many columns, — in 
fact, we all did, — and I took pleasure in 
the thought of those others they have yet to 
see — the Lateran, St. Paul's Without the 
Walls, San Lorenzo, and Trinita la Cava. 
When, I wonder, will they first see these, and 
will I be there with them*? 

We went out on the fine flat flags of the 
roof outside of the chapel, to look through 
the pierced parapet that we might see the tide 

258 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

come in ; and while we waited I told them 
how Harold the Saxon saved the Norman 
soldiers from drowning there ; and promised 
some day to show them the famous Bayeux 
Tapestry where this has been recorded. And 
then, as the white line had only commenced 
to creep over the brown expanse, we had 
the story of St. Christopher, who, for carrying 
Christ and his twelve disciples on his broad 
shoulders safely across these treacherous 
waters, received the wonderful sack which 
enabled him afterward to subdue the devil 
and obtain for himself a place in Paradise in 
spite of the enmity of St. Peter, whose advice 
he had disregarded. Then, as I was in the 
midst of others,— bishops, kings, and knights 
who had journeyed here long ago, — sud- 
denly the tide swept in, " faster than a horse 
can gallop," 't is said, and it is no exaggera- 
tion. How shall I describe it "^ You know 
how Souvestre speaks of it in " Les Reprouves 
et les Elus," and his words are the best for 
this phenomenon. I can find none as good. 
Soon no trace of sand could be seen any- 
where, and the sun went down in that exqui- 

259 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

site haze of purplish gold peculiar to Brittany 
skies at this time of the year, and left us 
thoroughly chilled. The boys, who had 
stood in silent open-eyed wonder, were quite 
ready to go down and be warmed by the great 
kitchen fire. 

It was difBcult to convince them that a 
birthday cake and candles would be impossi- 
ble ; but they were finally reconciled by the 
strangeness of the scene, and, because they 
were tired and happy, sat very still and 
watched while I told them more about the 
history of the mont; for they never tire of 
such tales. 

We had to wait some time, for all the 
places at the first table were taken before we 
arrived. This kept them up until an un- 
heard of hour, and they grew more and more 
hungry. 

Dozens of fowls and a number of roasts 
were being turned on spits by machinery 
in the great chimney-piece, and, of course, I 
started to tell the boys how King Arthur 
avenged the Duchess of Brittany and killed 
the giant ; but when I got to the part where 

260 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

the dozen children were roasted on a spit, 
just as these fowls were being turned before 
us, it was much too realistic. To avoid a 
deluge of tears, I was obliged to hurry on 
quickly and picture King Arthur and the 
giant in desperate combat, rolling, with club 
and sword, down the side of the mont. I 
stopped short on history after that, and we 
talked about the quantities of food and drink 
carried across the wastes outside to fill the 
huge halls, refectories, and cellars of the 
haughty Benedictines; and soon there were 
other diversions. Huge kettles of soup and 
vegetables simmered in the red-hot coals; 
coffee-pots were packed on red-hot ashes and 
left to stand ; many attendants hustled about, 
but perfect order and system reigned. And 
madame, handsome, neat, and smiling, ap- 
parently doing nothing, was really doing 
everything, and was everywhere at once. A 
truly remarkable woman, she — well worthy 
of her world-wide fame. As we sat there — 
the boys curled up on stools at our feet — 
there was a continuous stream of guests arriv- 
ing in automobiles, carriages, and by the 

261 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

last train, to spend the night. Many of them 
were greeted as old friends by madame, and 
all were cared for in some miraculous man- 
ner, although the place had seemed more 
than full before the late arrivals. All this 
helped amuse our weary little folk. As soon 
as we had had our dinner, we took our blue- 
and-white paper lanterns and climbed the 
narrow flights of stone steps to our cells on 
the terrace. And they were soon fast asleep. 
We two grown-ups sat out under the vines 
a little while to watch the moon rise, a great 
disk of pale gold, over the quiet waters. In 
the distance a tiny gleam of silver divided 
the land, and marked Brittany from Nor- 
mandy. Even this river lost itself once in 
the quicksands, and now struggles blindfold 
to the sea in its present channel, quite far 
from its original course. Before then it ran 
on the other side of the mont, which was 
then in Brittany. Now, as the river is still 
the boundary, the mont is in Normandy. 
Boat-loads of sight-seers were being rowed 
around the island in the moonlight, but not 
a sound disturbed us, hung high as we were 

262 







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^J^^Z¥. 


5-"* 4-'^.*^^"'5 




.^^V^J^^^H^^H 



A Brittany sunrise. 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

in mid-air; and, in anticipation of seeing the 
sun rise, we went to bed and to sleep, al- 
though we should have preferred to sit all 
night watching the unspeakable beauties of 
that wondrous bay. 

A man goes around in the morning to 
arouse those who wish to see the sun-up, but 
we were not obliged to trust to him, for some 
small voices got us out in plenty of time. 
Then it was that we discovered that none of 
our boots had been returned to our doors. 
Even this could not daunt us; and, barefooted 
and shivering, we hurried out before the first 
ray of light stole slowly up over the horizon, 
and were rewarded again in seeing the tide 
race in over the sands, and by getting a pic- 
ture of the sun as it first blinked sleepily 
through the clouds. 

Madame promised us an especial omelet 
for breakfast, as we had to go on before 
luncheon, and we went down to see her make 
the famous dish. Carefully as I watched her, 
I could see no secret either in materials or 
method. She broke some two dozen eggs 
into an enormous, long-handled skillet, and 

265 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

turned them deftly over the fire. Nor was 
the taste so different, although madame 
served it to us with her own hands, in a 
little room across the narrow street from the 
kitchen. It was good, surely, and we ate it, 
every scrap ; but it was scarcely as wonder- 
ful as we had expected after years of antici- 
pation, and my lord even went so far as to 
say that those I make are just as good. Of 
course, to the boys an omelet is just an 
omelet, no matter who turns it. However, 
madame herself was even better than we 
had imagined she could be, and the little 
scene was worthy of the many pictures by 
pen and brush she has inspired. I took a 
kodak of her standing in the doorway, but 
she would n't stand in the sun, because she 
said it would make her look ugly. In spite 
of her business ability, she is truly feminine. 
But this vanity on her part spoiled the pic- 
ture, for when we came to develop the nega- 
tive her face did not show at all. 

We went to Avranches for luncheon, and 
saw the wonderful view and a street fair in 
the square in front of the cathedral. Then 

266 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

we took the tram home. A more extended 
trip with so many restless boys would have 
been out of the question. Moreover, we 
were anxious to get back to pack, for our de- 
parture for Paris was only three days off. 
Francine went with us as far as Dinard, 
weeping, whenever she remembered to, but 
the unusual excitement of the journey made 
her forget the imminent parting most of the 
time. 

I must skip the weeks we spent in Paris, 
for that was no part of my original plan, and 
they were just the quiet, pleasant days that 
one can have in that beautiful city after one 
has learned how; and it proved to be a very 
nice extra which we all enjoyed. 

The trip home was rough, frightfully 
rough, and for two days no one was allowed 
on deck. 

Now for your questions. Did it pay ? 
Really, truly, surely, and honestly, it did ! 

Did we learn French ? Apparently a good 
deal, but in reality not very much ; that is, 
the boys did not. I, of course, gained flu- 
ency in speaking, which was what I wanted. 

267 



A TRANSPLANTED NURSERY 

Did it cost more than I had expected*? 
Two hundred dollars less ! And it could be 
done very much more cheaply — easily for 
seven hundred dollars, I feel confident; and 
this with a family of four for a stay of three 
months. But, mark you, this means living in 
one place and visiting only the places within 
a radius of, say, thirty miles. 

I should like to have crossed second-class, 
and would strongly advise those who wish 
to save the money to do so, for it is un- 
doubtedly quite as comfortable. But the 
line was drawn for us there, and we were not 
allowed to carry our experiment that far. 

I am satisfied that I have accomplished 
most successfully what I set out to do ; for 
we have demonstrated — to our own satisfac- 
tion at least — that a brief sojourn in France 
can be a wholesome, healthful holiday, one 
that is economical, delightful, and full of in- 
terest; that a nursery can be established 
there ; and that the transplanting does no 
harm. In our case it was productive of 
growth — mental and physical — both for 
the saplings and for their head gardener. 

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